HOLSTEIN MILK YIELD 



Examination of Records in Blue Book Furnishes no Support to Idea That Milking 

 Capacity in Cows is Transmitted Through Males Rather 

 Than Females. 



F. R. Marshall, 



Senior Animal Husbandman in Sheep and Goat Investigations, Bureau of Anim,al 



Industry, U. S. Department of Argiculture, Washington, D. C. 



THERE seems to be a growing 

 tendency to direct the study of 

 inheritance to a greater extent 

 along utilitarian lines. It is 

 quite possible that some of the principles 

 that obtain in inheritance of coat 

 characters may also apply to capacity 

 for certain kinds of work or production, 

 or at least to factors that contribute to 

 such capacity. 



While actual tests and specially 

 planned matings are altogether neces- 

 sary and desirable, yet there is consider- 

 able material at hand that may profit- 

 ably be studied rmtil more desirable 

 data is available. Such material is 

 contained in the Year Book for the 

 American Trotting Register, which 

 shows the records of all horses that have 

 trotted faster than 2 :30, arranged under 

 their sires and dams. This book does 

 not record the non-performing offspring 

 of any matings. In its present form 

 the Year Book was regarded by Galton 

 as fiunishing material of value for 

 statistical study, as evidenced by the 

 use he made of the same.^ 



The Advanced Registers for dairy 

 breeds of cattle also show what animals 

 have met prescribed standards and give 

 opportunity for tracing their ancestry 

 and knowing the records of the ances- 

 tors. Here too we are dealing with 



selected material, as there is no mention 

 of non-record-making offspring. The 

 study reported in this article relates to 

 inheritance through paternal and ma- 

 ternal lines, of factors controlling the 

 production of butter fat. 



The work was done by Perry Van 

 Ewing, now with the Georgia Experi- 

 ment Station, and was presented as the 

 thesis requirement for a M.Sc. degree 

 granted by the Ohio State University 

 in 1913. It is a continuation of another 

 study made at that institution by W. O. 

 Reagin and reported in the American 

 Breeders' Magazine.^ 



Swing's results are of special interest 

 in connection with Cole's reference^ to 

 the prevailing impression that, "the 

 males of dairy breeds, generally, are 

 prepotent in the transmission of the 

 characteristics of the females of their 

 race." It was the foregoing statement 

 that first suggested an examination of 

 records of cows as reported in the Blue 

 Book compiled annually from the Ad- 

 vanced Register for the Holstein Breed. 

 In Volume 1 , there were found 1317 cases 

 of cows having official records and whose 

 paternal grandams also had records. 

 In addition, there were 687 cases in 

 which a record-making individual had 

 a maternal grandam with a record. 

 These were all seven-day records, made 



1898. 



1 Proc. Royal Soc. London, Vol. 72, no. 384, pp. 310-315. 



2 Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 148. 



3 Vol. 4, No. 3, p. 160, American Breeders' Magazine. "Among cattle breeders we find a pre- 

 vailing impression that ' the males of dairy-breeds, generally, are prepotent in the transmission of 

 the characteristics of the females of their race' (Miles, op. cit., p. 231). Sedgwick is quoted in the 

 same place as saying: 'It is well known, for example, that the supply of milk by cows is hered- 

 itarily influenced by the bulls rather than by the cows from which they are directly descended, 

 and that the character of the secretion, as regards both the quantity and the quality of the milk, 

 is chiefly derived from the paternal grandmother * * *.' 



"This, if true, would fit in well with sex-limited inheritance, and such indeed it may ultimately 

 be found to be." 



437 



