FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 299 



This test should be made every three months, or thirteen weeks, and in 

 computing the yield of the cow for the three months the six weeks previous 

 to and the six weeks following the test should be taken, for obvious reasons, 

 and not the three months before and the three months after. Even if the 

 cow is shrinking in flow the week in the middle of the three months will 

 fairly represent her average yield for that period. 



After a fair trial all mature cows that do not come up to a profitable 

 standard should be disposed of at once, A heifer may not do well with her 

 first calf, but if she is a promising individual in other respects she should 

 still be retained. If, however, she is a poor producer during her^second 

 lactation period, she should be kept no longer. 



Horses, beef cattle, and sheep may be produced in large numbers on the 

 ranch, but dairy cows can not be obtained in this way; they must be bred 

 somewhere by dairymen. Many of our dairy farms where large numbers of 

 cows are kept afford excellent opportunity for good work in breeding. We 

 recently purchased a grade Holstein-Friesian cow from a large dairy herd 

 where a scrub bull was kept. This cow produced 300 pounds of butter fat 

 in the first six months, yet her calves had been sold, like all the rest from 

 this herd, at $2.50 each as soon as the milk of the dam was good. Any 

 dairyman can raise a better cow than he can buy for the same money, and 

 usually the only thing lacking is a pure-bred bull to head the herd. 



Improving, pure-bred stock by breeding is an exceedingly intricate and 

 difficult problem, but grading is comparatively simple, as with common 

 cows a pure bred sire is sure to be prepotent, and good results are, therefore, 

 certain to follow. The old saying, " The sire is half the herd," does not 

 always express the whole truth. In a sire whose ancestors have been bred 

 for dairy purposes only, these characteristics have become firmly fixed and 

 when crossed on cows of no special breeding will produce calves more like 

 the sire than the dam. In this case the sire counts for more than half. A 

 dairyman may start with nothing but the most ordinary cows and bv simply 

 breeding to dairy sires of excellent quality and pure breeding he will in a 

 few years have a fine working herd. Do not misunderstand me; I am advo- 

 cating grading, but not crossing, breeds. Great harm has been done and is 

 still being done to the dairy cattle of this country by crossing. 



Our American farmers, as a class, are too fickle. It seems to be difficult 

 for them to decide on a policy and' settle down to that as a permanent thing. 

 Frequently a dairyman will make a start by purchasing a Holstein-Friesian 

 sire and about the time he gets some half-blood calves a brilliant idea strikes 

 him and he thinks he will show the dairy world something about producing 

 dairy cattle that will give a large flow of milk and also test high in butter 

 fat, and he purchases a Jersey sire. After another two or three years beef 

 is at a good price and he decides to try a little beef blood, so that he can get 

 more for his old wornout cows . The result is , his herd, after all these years of 

 breeding, is no better, if indeed, as good as when he started, I do believe 

 that there is untold benefit to be derived from grading, and that this is the 

 way to improve the average dairy stock of the country. No matter how 

 poor a herd a dairyman may have, the first crop of calves from a pure-bred 

 sire will be half-bloods or better, and the next generation three-fourths or 

 better. I can not imagine how a dairyman can improve his herd more 

 surely or more economically than by this method. 



