600 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



have two or three heifers descended from a cow that was not an easy 

 milker, and I don't raise any more of them. Life is too short. 



Then comes a large, crooked, milk vein. Some people are rather 

 inclined to ridicule that, but I have found it a good test. It shows the 

 flow of blood from the udder to the heart. Now, when there is not much 

 milk, there is not much blood there. What I lay most stress on is the 

 hole in the end of it; if the hole is large, it indicates that it is built 

 to carry plenty of blood. We will probably find this larger on the left 

 side than on the right. These are always things that are present in 

 a good dairy cow, and they are characteristic of a good dairy cow. 

 We find the same characteristics in the sire. 



I want the head and neck to be thin. I want him to have the same 

 arched spine, and the same contour here as in the cow, and I want to 

 find four good, rudimentary teats in the sire, which are well placed. 

 I lay great stress on their being placed, because the sire reproduces 

 himself, and you will find four times out of five that the teats of the 

 heifer are much the same as the rudimentary teats of the sire. Then 

 I like to see a good milk vein. Then I take the loose skin at the flank 

 and stretch it; if it stretches out long an flexible, it is a good indi- 

 cation of the udder on his heifers. I was judging at a fair up in 

 Washington County, my state, and there was a farmer there who was in 

 the habit of carrying off the prizes each year, and I gave him a 

 premium for one or two of his cows, but none for his heifers, and none 

 for his sire. He came to me and said, "I wish you would tell me why 

 you turned down my bull and my heifers," well, we brought out the bull; 

 I could not find in him any of the rudimentary lines. He said he never 

 knew of the existence of anything like that. Then we looked at the heif- 

 ers; not one of them had an udder bigger than a sheep, and he said he was 

 disappointed in them, but didn't know the reason. He didn't take offense 

 at being turned down, but declared his intention of trying to breed 

 along the lines I had pointed out to him. In this case, the sire simply 

 reproduced himself. 



I want a good bull with good ancestry; the best I can get; but when 

 we get to a place where we must choose between a bull with a good 

 registered ancestry of performances and is not himself a good specimen, 

 and one who is a good individual, I would rather have a bull that has 

 the record of performance every time than the one with no known 

 ancestry, but a good individual. Keep a record of his milk strain and 

 breed from that. Give me a bull with an ancestry of producers, and he 

 will produce himself in his descendants. 



Given these things, I know we can develop a herd of better quality 

 and better producers than we can in any other way. 



The Chairman — We might devote a few minutes to the discussion of 

 Mr. "Van Alstyne's address. 



Mr. Rodgers — What effect would it have on the cream where a farmer 

 keeps one-half Holstein and one-half Jersey cows? Would it churn 

 together properly? 



Mr. Van Alstyne — Yes; there would not be so much loss if separated 

 by machine. Of course, we know that cream passes in the separator as 

 rapidly as the gravity allows", and the butter globules would not be mixed 



