SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART VII. 285 



$2.70. This milk was fed at tlie rate of ten pounds per day until the 

 calves were fifty days old, when it was gradually lessened one pound per 

 day for ten days and then no more was fed. No substitutes for milk 

 were used. Only the ordinary grains which the farmer produces, and a 

 good quality of legume hay, were fed, showing that the dairyman can 

 raise a calf in this way with almost no extra trouble. The calves got 

 rather thin for a time but they made good growth, and several of them 

 are now cows in milk and good producers, indicating that they were not 

 Injured by this method of raising. 



The other cost of raising a heifer to the age of 28 months has been 

 estimated according to some prices, at $9.60 for the pasture and $8.10 

 for the feed. This with $2.70 for the milk and $3 for the value of the 

 calf at birth makes a total of $23.40. But even allowing that it costs $30, 

 there is still a large profit in the operation, for the dairyman cannot as 

 a rule buy cows for $45 that are equal to these heifers. Fifty per cent on 

 the investment! Isn't that a good business proposition? 



If breeding means anything anywhere it means that the cow's quality 

 of large milk production is likely to be transmitted to her daughter. 

 There is no other animal from which such an absolute and complete 

 record of performance can be secured as from the dairy cow. Shall the 

 value of these records to her progeny be thrown away by not saving the 

 good heifer calves? 



Nobody else has so many natural advantages as the dairyman for 

 raising good heifers, and nobody else has the dairyman's interest in it, or 

 is likely to succeed so well at it. Any other principal method of replen- 

 ishing the herd is sheer wastefulness of great natural advantages. 



PECULIAR VALUE OF A GOOD DAIRY SIRE. 



Calves will take their qualities from both parents, and it is equally 

 important that the calves have good parentage on the male side. But 

 dairymen pay comparatively little attention to the quality of the sire. 

 In a recent visit to the dairy region of northern Illinois the speaker saw 

 six herds in which the heifer calves were raised for future use, but 

 which the bulls used were miserable little scrubs, veritable runts and 

 weaklings, obtained by simply saving a grade calf from the herd. And 

 of many other sires fairly good as individuals, nothing is known of the 

 actual milk production of their female ancestors. 



SIUE MORE THAN HALF THE HERD IX THREE WAYS. 



It is literally true that the sire is "half the herd." Of the qualities 

 bequeathed to the calves the male parent furnishes half. In a herd of 

 forty ccws his influence is as great as that of the whole number of cows 

 together. 



If he is of stronger prepotency than most of the cows, that is, able to 

 transmit his qualities more surely and strongly to the progeny, which is 

 usually the case with a well bred sire, then the bull represents more than 

 half the herd. In that case more than half the characteristics of the calf, 

 or the stronger and predominating half, comes from the sire. 



