256 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



the thighs,) is wide, with yellowish skin, and soft to the touch, 

 and it may be reasonably assured that such a bull, with well 

 selected cows of the common or grade varieties, will produce 

 good milkers. Then one has only to proceed, adhering to these 

 rules, and breed on. Every young cow which does not prove a 

 good milker, should be turned off for fattening, and her heifer 

 calf to the butcher. The heifer calves of the good milkers 

 only should be reared. The milking faculty will then become 

 well established in the herd, and by the persistent use of such 

 bulls as we have described, although the cows are but grades, 

 all the substantial advantages of the pure blood, on the side of 

 the bull, will virtually be obtained. 



"We have seen in the history of the Ayrshire cow, in previous 

 pages, how an inferior race of cattle, by the long and persistent 

 use of well bred bulls, of choice blood, have been elevated into an 

 established milking "breed." That process was a simple one, 

 and easy to follow; it can be followed with any kind of cattle 

 which it is desirable to improve, provided the L/st improving 

 blood is adhered to, until it stamps its individual character ou 

 the baser blood with which it was first crossed. 



Now, at this point of successful attainment, is the very place 

 where the breeder will be apt to fail in further progress, and lose 

 a portion of the advantages which he has been at so much 

 expense of time and cost, in his pure bred and well selected bulls, 

 to attain. He may think his cows "good enough;" that his 

 tribe of milkers is established, and he need go no further. "A 

 pure bred bull is expensive, and I cannot afford to expend so 

 much money to keep on in the same way. I'll now get, or raise 

 a grade bull of this good milking stock." But let it be under- 

 stood that this grade bull has got bad blood in him. Away back 

 in the generations on the "common" side of his ancestry, a 

 worthless brute has occurred, either in the male or female line, 

 and that very bad blood may crop out in a large majority of the 



