262 



The Journal of Heredity 



sertions, the public should learn that 

 science cannot deal with reality in 

 that way. This book is an admirable 

 example of scientific candor, accuracy, 

 enthusiasm and restraint. We can 



only hope that it may be given the 

 widest currency. 



Bennett M. Allen, 



University of California 

 (Southern Branch) 



The Economic Value of Pure Bred Cattle 



Seventy-five per cent of the dairy 

 bulls in use in the United States are 

 either grades or scrubs. They are 

 bulls from ancestry that has not been 

 bred generation after generation for 

 large and economical production of 

 milk and butter fat. This fact, says 

 the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, accounts for the low 

 average production per cow in this 

 country. 



In 1921, there were less than 80.000 

 pure-bred bull calves registered by the 

 breed associations. But this probably 

 does not represent half the pure-bred 

 bulls born in 1921. The 80,000 or 

 more that were not registered, in addi- 

 tion to a part of those that were regis- 

 tered, were probably slaughtered be- 

 cause their breeders were not able to 

 market them profitably. This is be- 

 cause the average farmer is not yet 

 convinced of the advantages to be de- 

 rived from the use of pure-bred sires. 

 If every pure-bred bull calf born in 



this country were raised, it would take 

 a three or four years' crop of calves 

 to replace the grade and scrub bulls 

 (numbering approximately 600,000) 

 that are being used in dairy herds. 

 When it is considered that not all 

 pure-bred calves are worthy of being 

 used, even on grade herds, and allow- 

 ance is made for the normal death rate 

 and other factors that enter to cut 

 down the number of pure-bred bulls 

 raised, the above estimate of three or 

 four years could safely be increased to 

 five or six years as the time that 

 would be required to replace the scrub 

 bulls. 



Only three per cent of our dairy 

 cattle are pure bred, and the supply 

 of pure-bred bulls would be wholly 

 inadequate if the farmers of the coun- 

 try could only appreciate the benefit it 

 would be to them to head their pro- 

 ducing herds with pure-bred sires of 

 good producing strains. 



— U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



Two Corrections 



Owing to a typographical error in the notice of a paper on Campanula, by 

 Lathouwers, in Vol. XIV, number 8, page 345, of this Journal, the last line of 

 the first paragraph was carried over to the second paragraph, with resulting con- 

 fusion. The second paragraph should begin as follows : 



"In a pure line of Campanula medium a form called uioiiantha appeared. . ." 



In the August 1923 Journal, page 209, a case of typographical "crossing 

 over" occurred in the legend to the chart accompanying Dr. Castle's paper on the 

 inheritance of webbed toes. In the last line of the legend it is stated that the 

 character may be carried in the Y-chromosome. This should have read : 



"Suggesting that the character is carried in the X-chromosome." 



