598 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



calves are what they should be, and he proves to be a good animal, we will 

 keep him just so long as he is serviceable. There is more deterioration to 

 be laid to the yearling than from most any other cause. "We want the 

 strength and stamina of fully matured ancestors. I prefer to have a 

 bull eight or nine years old; I never know just what he is going to do 

 until he is four years old. I sacrificed one of the best bulls that I 

 ever had when he was three years old, and never knew it until his 

 daughters came to milk. So I have learned to keep my sires just as long 

 as they are serviceable. With grades, I would use a bull with his 

 daughters. You will say this is incestuous breeding. That is true, but 

 when we bring these two lines of blood together we get three-quarters 

 of the line-blood that we want. If there are no weaknesses in either sire or 

 dam there will be little to fear from such a course. And when we 

 buy again, buy a bull that is bred along that line. That is where 

 many a farmer makes a fearful mistake; he would like a little more 

 size, so he takes another breed to get it; he would like a little more 

 butter, so he goes to the Jerseys to get it, and perhaps he would like a 

 little more beef, so he goes to the Hereford to get it. He is like the 

 woodchoppers; they were Canucks, their work was cold, and they gen- 

 erally wanted a little something to warm them up. On one occasion 

 they tried to tell the landlord at the tavern what they wanted; they 

 didn't know the name, so the Canuck said: "You take a little whiskey 

 to make it strong, and a little water to make it weak; a little lemon to 

 make it sour, and a little sugar to make it sweet." "Oh," said the land- 

 lord, "that is a flip." An so it is with our farmer. You get a little 

 Holstein for the milk, and a little Jersey for the cream, and a little 

 Short-horn for the beef, and you have a "flip" every time, and if I want 

 to see poor cattle, I will go to the place where they have followed 

 this course. 



When I went into breeding, I raised all my heifer calves. But there 

 was something wrong; I didn't get results; so I said "I will have to be 

 more careful," and I selected them only from the best cows, and I got 

 nearer what I wanted, but I still drew a good many blanks, until I 

 began to examine the calves themselves. Now it is a fact that a good 

 many heifer calves fail to be as good as their dams. Do you ever 

 think how much we ask of the dairy cow? We ask her in twelve months 

 to support herself, to reproduce herself, and give us an amount of milk 

 often equal to the weight of her body. Now I have begun to examine my 

 calves, and if I flnd a calf that is weak, and aenemic, I don't try to raise it, 

 and this you can tell by looking at the calf. Open its mouth and look 

 at its teeth, and if you find only four of the milk teeth, that calf is 

 not worth raising. Why? That mother had too much of a strain on 

 her, and she was not able to put strength and stamina into the calf she 

 was raising. I have raised some of these calves, and they have always 

 been a disappointment. Then I examined the naval, and the teats; 

 one of the tests of a good udder is to have the teats placed right. This 

 fall I was a judge at a fair up in my state, and man brought in a heifer. 

 She v.as a fine Jersey, and I thought "that is the prize winner, sure," 

 until I examined her udder and found two of the teats joined together. 



