174 The Journal 
small herds and therefore have rela- 
tively few get, whereas an inferior 
animal may be used in a large herd and 
have relatively many get. (2) The 
advanced registry standard is so low 
that with judicious feeding and care 
almost any animal can make the 
advanced registry requirements. In- 
deed, at the present time the average 
requirement for the advanced register 
is practically 125 pounds below the 
average performance of the cows in 
the advanced register. This relation 
of different classes as compared with 
requirements is indicated in the fol- 
lowing table: 
of Heredity 
anything like conclusive results. Most 
of the older sires would be entirely 
excluded from such a list. When the 
advanced register is older, this method 
of study would be more feasible than 
at present. 
At the present time what seems the 
best method is to set a higher hypo- 
thetical standard of excellence for the 
offspring and judge the great sires by 
this. There is no practical reason for 
applying a similar test to the dams 
because these will be discovered through 
the achievements of their male ances- 
tors or male descent. Indeed, if a 
prepotent dam does not have a pre- 
AVERAGE PRODUCTION COMPARED WITH ADVANCED REGISTRY 
REQUIREMENTS 
Class Age Average Fat Record Average A. R. Requirements 
A 5 up 490.4 360.000 
B 414-5 480.3 350.875 
Cc 4-414 457.4 332.625 
D 344 439.9 314.375 
E 3-3 411.8 295.125 
F 244-3 400.1 276.875 
G 2-24 Shins 259.625 
Average 436.74 rt Wy Seay if! 
It appears from the table that the 
number of advanced registry cows 
which a certain sire has may therefore 
more properly be considered an indi- 
cation of opportunity, prolificacy, or 
business expediency, than a test of 
prepotency in production, since a breeder 
in the habit of testing would place more 
daughters of his herd sires in the ad- 
vanced register than one who did not, 
and a prolific bull in a large herd which 
is being regularly tested, may have an 
exceptionally large number of daughters 
in the advanced register without really 
being a sire of great producers. It is 
probably true, however, that when one 
daughter of a sire makes an unusually 
large record, his other daughters at- 
tract attention and are therefore tested, 
and in such cases the number of ad- 
vanced register daughters might bear 
some relation to his merit. 
Another method of studying pre- 
potency in any breed, which would 
seem to be very promising, would be 
to compare the daughters of various 
sires with their dams, and note the 
extent of increase. Here, however 
we find the data far too limited to give 
potent son or perhaps grandson, her 
influence on the breed as a whole be- 
comes practically negligible, however 
superior an animal she herself may be. 
This is due, of course, to the relatively 
large number of progeny of the male as 
compared with the female. 
In setting a higher standard we choose 
to select 600 pounds of butterfat pro- 
duced by a mature cow as the basis for 
a discriminatory study. We select 600 
pounds as a standard because it may be 
safely assumed that any cow making 
such a record possesses individual ex- 
cellence as a producer; for it is exceed- 
ingly doubtful whether such a record 
could be made from an ordinary cow 
through any artifice of feeding and. 
milking. Using the same scale of 
increase (which appears to be sub- 
stantially correct) as is now used in 
the advanced register, the 600 pounds 
standard for the different ages would 
be as indicated in the table on page 175. 
From that table it may easily be 
seen that 490.5 pounds of butterfat for 
a 2-year-old cow is considered a 600- 
pound record, since such a cow could 
in all probability make such a record 
ee 
