Wilsdorf: German Zootechny 



113 



first-class production-capacity, and this 

 l^rought home a rcahzation of the fact 

 that the latter quahty was a matter of 

 inheritance, and might or might not be 

 identified by the "show form" of the 

 animal in question. Now the practical 

 breeder spends more time studying 

 pedigrees and less in measuring the 

 relative proportions of the parts of his 

 animals; "for if an animal has nothing 

 more to show than a beautifully pro- 

 portioned body, and is a second-class 

 producer, there is no room for it in 

 practical animal husbandry." After 

 40 years of careful tests, made possible 

 by the invention of suitable apparatus, 

 the dairyman knows that the family to 

 breed from is the one that yields the 

 best quantity and quality of milk, not 

 the one that produces calves most like 

 the pictures in some "Standard of 

 Perfection." 



During all this time an effort was 

 being made to find some connection 

 between form and capacity — to find 

 correlations, as the professional genetist 

 would say, between some features of the 

 body and the milk yield. One after 

 another was advanced; many writers 

 established imaginary "milk types," 

 some of them on the most unbelievable 

 grounds. "It has not yet been proved," 

 in Dr. Wilsdorf 's opinion, ' 'that any 

 certain characters or forms give any 

 reliable indication about the milk yield 

 of a cow." He does not hold it im- 

 possible that such correlations may 

 eventually be found, but points out 

 that the careful experiment of Gaude 

 with nearly 1,000 cows in East Fries- 

 land showed "that the influence of such 

 factors as feed, work, care, pasturage, 

 etc., caused so much change in bodily 

 conditions as to make the probability 

 of recognizing 'milk indications' very 

 unlikely." 



Of all civilized countries, Germany has 

 the greatest nimiber of breeds of cattle — 

 probably a hundred, many of the 

 smaller of which are now dying out. 

 But only in two places are the herd 

 books sufficiently full and ancient to 

 make pedigree breeding satisfactory: 

 among the Shorthorn breeders, and in 

 East Friesland where the Holstein- 

 Friesian cattle are bred. In the latter 



district, the records show that most of 

 the good animals trace back to one of a 

 very small number of good bulls: 

 "Primus," "Matador," "Bernhard," 

 and "Max." 



PRACTICAL PEDIGREE STUDY. 



"How important pedigree study is 

 may be illustrated l^y an experience of 

 my own. For 12 years I have been a 

 member of the live-stock purchasing 

 committee of the Brandenburg Board 

 of Trade in East Friesland, and at the 

 very beginning of my activity learned 

 that a promising looking black and 

 white bull in one district of the province 

 of Brandenburg, although bred to 

 excellent cows, got offspring of mediocre 

 value, both in form and in color. In- 

 vestigation showed that the bull was 

 from a herd of black cattle in East 

 Friesland, which a few years before had 

 been ' graded up ' from a herd of brown 

 cattle. This fact, extraordinarily un- 

 fortunate for the breeders of the dis- 

 trict in which he was located, gave me 

 occasion to begin investigating per- 

 sonally the pedigree of every sire which 

 was thereafter brought into the region, 

 and to require from owners of calves by 

 him periodical reports in the future. 

 I checked up these reports at every sale 

 of East Friesian cattle and in the course 

 of a few years had satisfactory evidence 

 as to the breeding value of practically 

 every important strain of cattle in the 

 region, so that little by little we were 

 able in our yearly purchase to get cattle 

 of greater breeding value into the 

 province. What we did must be done 

 sooner or later by the breeders of every 

 other district: they must find out the 

 actual value of all stock offered them, 

 from a genetic point of view." 



While science has been applied to 

 horse and cattle breeding with results 

 highly gratifying to German pride, the 

 sheep breeders seem to have fallen 

 behind. Lack of careful selection, and 

 inbreeding of bad animals rather than 

 good, are blamed in part for the ruin of 

 the industry — among other troubles, It 

 is stated that a failure to select fecund 

 strains led to a decline of fecundity in 

 German sheep 



