340 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Your attention has been called to the fact that dairy bred cows are 

 very high priced and very few in numbers. The truth of this state- 

 ment is best exemplified by the fact that were all the poor cows that 

 are now being milked in this state to be disposed of, it would be prac- 

 tically impossible and at least unreasonable to think of buying high 

 bred productive cows to fill their places at any reasonable cost. 



Recently in Des Moines there was a Guernsey sale at which 75 head 

 of high grade cows, calves and heifers were sold for an average price 

 of $107.50. Four cows came into the ring at one time and the auctioneer 

 offered the buyers an opportunity to choose one or take them all. As 

 a result the highest priced one of these four cows brought $170.00; the 

 lowest priced one, $160.00. They were not pure bred recorded cows but 

 simply four good cows bred and raised along dairy lines. The average 

 price of the four was $165.00. These results were accomplished by the 

 building up of a dairy herd by the use of good dairy bred sires, by the 

 selection of good cows and the elimination from the herd of the poor 

 ones. 



I am sure the question which presents itself at this time is the one 

 of improving our herds of milk cows. To do this it will be necessary to 

 use a different class of sires from those which have been used in the 

 past. In the selection of sires for the purpose of reproducing productive 

 offspring the records of the dam, granddams and the great granddams in 

 the pedigree back for at least six generations should be duly considered. 

 It is not reasonable to believe that the offspring of a sire whose mater- 

 nal ancestors have been meagre producers will ever yield a sufficient 

 amount of milk and butter-fat to be extremely profitable. 



In selecting cows to build up the dairy herd it is necessary to depend 

 largely upon their breeding and individuality. After they have entered 

 the herd the advisable course is to weigh and test their milk periodically 

 throughout the year and thus determine accurately whether or not each 

 cow is making a profit or a loss. By retaining only the profitable cows 

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 their breeding and individuality, it is possible to so conduct operations 

 that within a few years our herds will be vasUy superior to what they 

 are at the present time. 



There is one point that should be borne in mind by every dairyman 

 and farmer who milks cows. If the sires which he selects are of such 

 a character that each generation the resulting daughters are superior in 

 the least degree to their mothers, then the efforts from the standpoint 

 of the breeder are an absolute success and it is only a course of time 

 until the cows in the herd resulting from such breeding will be extreme- 

 ly productive. On the other hand, whenever a sire is selected whose re- 

 sulting daughters under the same conditions are in the least degree 

 poorer than their mothers were at the same age, then the efforts of the 

 farmer or dairyman from the standpoint of the breeder are an absolute 

 failure and he accomplishes nothing during his entire lifetime by such 

 methods. 



I remember talking with Mr. Gillett, the man who bred, raised and 

 developed Colantha 4th's Johanna. He told me that he found the daugh- 

 ters of one young bull that he used in his herd produced no more milk 



