EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART X. 593 



milk far in excess of the beef bred cow from wherever she comes when 

 weights of cows are compared. 



Many of our leading agriculturists who have for years advocated the 

 dual purpose cow are abandoning their positions on the subject and have 

 given up in despair the breeding of cows combining both character- 

 istics. Witness the lamentable collapse of the Red Poll boom which has 

 proven a very indifferent beef as well as milk animal. 



It is so often found that where both these opposite tendencies are at 

 work in the same breed that it is almost impossible to be sure that 

 the heifer shall be a good milker and the steer shall be a good beef 

 animal. The results seem to be very uncertain and more than one 

 farmer has imparted to me in confidence that though he has always kept 

 his best milkers for breeding purposes, somehow it seemed as though his 

 heifers never would quite come up to the standard of the old cows. I have 

 in mind as I speak one who to my knowledge had several excellent milkers, 

 some ten years ago, the descendants of which today on his place are very 

 indifferent in milk producers. 



But after all has been said the blooded beef bred cow that is milked 

 some has a place and quite an important one as the matron of and 

 the instructor in primary methods to her vast family that produces the 

 steers required to furnish our cuisine with the juicy roasts and savory 

 steaks, soups and stews that seem to be ever in more demand as the 

 bonds of the Anglo-American alliance tighten. She belongs where land 

 is cheap and forage abundant and where some way of harvesting the 

 rich succulent grasses of the plains and producing from them a product 

 in a condensed and convenient form for shipment to a distant market 

 is essential. 



But as the value of land rises we will gradually drift into more dairy- 

 ing with better dairy methods. On high priced land it seems almost 

 impossible to keep up the fertility of the soil and produce sufficient to 

 pay taxes and interest on the money invested without milking cows. 

 But regardless of the breed the farmer of the future will have to know 

 just what each cow is doing for her country and weed out all drones. 

 He will have learned that proper milk producing feed in sufficient 

 quantities, correctly balanced, is essential to produce a profitable in- 

 crease over just living in which all the feed given is thrown away. 

 His methods of feeding and caring for cows will be vastly in advance 

 of ours and he will use the scale and weigh sheet at each milking of 

 each cow. Frequent tests of the cream content and actual butter pos- 

 sible to produce from each cow's milk will be made. When the question 

 of severing connection with one of these faithful, well kept cows is 

 taken up her past record will be gone over in detail and if it is one 

 at which she can point with pride perhaps it may lengthen her term of 

 office as one of our milk producers. This is said to be one of the secrets of 

 the success in breeding dairy cows on the island of Jersey, where 

 about ten thousand cattle are kept on the island of only about ten 

 thousand acres extent. They are ever selling their best and producing 

 still better. 



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