MAMIE'S MINNIE, A MILK TYPE SHORTHORN 



This animal represents a family of Shorthorns that has been bred with a view to milk pro- 

 duction, not beef production. Her record in 1913 was 14,838 pounds of milk, in 1914, 

 16,201 pounds, a record better than that of many fine members of the Jersey or other 

 dairy breeds. Between this animal and the one shown on the opposite page there is 

 scarcely a single feature of type or conformation in common. The differences between 

 a Jersey and Guernsey cow, for example, are negligible in comparison. Yet these two 

 cows are "breed" sisters, and might appear on the same page of the herd book. Such 

 a contrast as this illustrates graphically the point that a breed is whatever its adherents 

 want to call it; it is not a biological division. Photograph from the owners. May and 

 Otis, Granville Centre, Pa. (Fig. 4.) 



polled condition. Animals may be iden- 

 tical in form, function and even ancestry, 

 but if they differ in respect to the pres- 

 ence or absence of horns, one may 

 belong to the Polled Durham breed and 

 the other will be merely a Shorthorn. 

 These two types are exhibited separately 

 in the shows, they are recorded in 

 separate herd books and are recognized 

 officially and in text -books of the day 

 as distinct breeds of cattle.^ 



Lastly, we find that what is ordinarily 

 considered as the most reliable feature 



2 It should be said, however, that many good 

 herd book, as well as in that of their own breed, 

 iu some other breeds. 



to which we may hold fast in our con- 

 ception of a breed, that is, degree of 

 kinship among animals of a group, is 

 not at all a safe means to delimit a breed. 

 The oldest and most honored of the 

 registry associations — that maintained 

 for Shorthorn cattle in England — 

 accepts today as members of the breed 

 animals which have but fifteen- 

 sixteenths of Shorthorn ancestry. The 

 rules of the Morgan Horse Association 

 admit the entry of animals with only 

 one thirty-second of the blood of Justin 



Polled Durhams are entered in the Shorthorn 

 This double registry is not altogether unknown 



535 



