166 MODES OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 



proving the quality of live stock for centuries past, 

 and long ago a relatively high level was reached by 

 the most skillful breeders. 



Furthermore, in this same connection, the fact 

 must not be lost sight of, that in the practice of 

 the breeder's art many of the most brilliant suc- 

 cesses are purely accidental, in the sense that the 

 superior individual often appears quite without 

 relation to the breeder's conscious or planned 

 efforts. A few examples will suffice to illustrate 

 this point. Mr. Oscar Tretsven of the Montana 

 Agricultural College, has reported recently ^ the 

 particulars in regard to the performance of a grade 

 Jersey cow purchased in Minnesota. No particu- 

 lars of its breeding were given. It was just a 

 "grade," that, like Topsy, "growed."^ However, 

 her record for a year was 16,286.1 lbs. of milk, 

 844.8 lbs. of fat (= 1056 lbs. of 80 % butter). In 

 a seven-day test she produced 450.2 lbs. of milk 

 and 21.245 lbs. fat. Her yearly record, at the 

 time it was made, put her fifth in the list of high- 

 est producing (world's record) cows of the Jersey 



» *' Hoard's Dairyman, Vol. XLIII, p. 695, May 31, 1912. 



2 In a letter of July 14, 1914, Professor R. F. Miller very kindly 

 gives me the following information about this cow : " I may say that 

 we do not know anything about her breeding. She was simply 

 bought in Minnesota from a Polish farmer with a lot of other grade 

 milch cows. The man we bought her of was not making dairying a 

 specialty and had probably not bred his stock very strictly in that 

 direction. We consider her to be a grade Jersey, although she shows 

 some Guernsey blood and a Shorthorn frame." 



