FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 19 



and milk from the same food, but had no marked excellence in either. 

 Man took this one type of cattle and moulded, on the one hand, the 

 modern dairy cow, with her structural characteristics, and on the other 

 the modern beef cow, with her structural characteristics. 



While it is true that both of these types have their peculiar character- 

 istics, they have not been bred long enough along these lines so that a 

 breeder may feel absolutely sure of results in mating his animals. Some 

 of the beef breeds have individual cows of dairy quality, and the dairy 

 breeds contain cows that are not dairy animals. But a majority of the 

 progeny are true to type. Hence, when we breed dairy-cows we can 

 expect that a large percentage of the heifers will develop into profitable 

 dairy cows, and when we breed cows of the beef or so-called dual pur- 

 pose breeds, we can with equal certainty expect a large percentage of 

 the offspring to be good beef animals and not good for dairy purposes. 



This being true, to make the most out of dairying special dairy cows 

 should be selected to compose our herd. 



No matter how much care has been used in choosing our cows, they 

 should be tested annually and the poorer cows of the herd disposed of. 

 This is the only way to improve the herd or keep it up to a high degree 

 of excellence. 



YEARLY MILK RECORDS. 



To determine the value of a dairy cow we must know how much milk 

 she will give in a year and how rich that milk is in butter fat. The dairy 

 form alone will not do, we must have performance. That is the prac- 

 tical test. All good dairy cows have the dairy form, but all dairy cows 

 that have the dairy form are not good ones. 



To know the amount of milk a cow will give in a day or a week, or 

 ev(m a month, is of no particular value. What is valuable is to know 

 the amount of milk she will give in one year, because we have to keep 

 her for the ^ear. Quite often the cow that gives a wonderful flow of 

 milk when fresh drops off in her flow of milk in a short time and does 

 not produce as much in a year as her more modest sister that starts in 

 at a more moderate gait, but continues on well through the year. 

 The milk should be weighed every night and morning, the extra trouble 

 being a good investment for another reason, as the milkers will take 

 more interest in their work if they record the milk at every milking. 



TESTING FOR BUTTER FAT. 



In testing the milk for butter fat, many make a mistake in not 

 getting a correct sample of milk. Most of the fault found with the 

 test in our public creameries is due to this fact. 



When we begin to milk a cow the cream at once commences to rise to 

 the top, and if when through milking a sample be taken from the top of 

 the pail this is perceptibly richer than at the bottom of the pail. The 

 milk should be turned from one pail to another several times to get the 

 cream evenly distributed and then a sample taken. Again, a cow gives 

 richer milk at one milking than at another. The milk may vary as 

 much as 1 per cent, in butter fat from one milking to another. Hence 

 a composite sample of at least four consecutive milkings should be 

 taken, to eliminate this chance of error. Again, a cow gives richer milk 



