164 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Breeding Dairy Cows. 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd. — The first important step in securing 

 cows having superior milking qualities, is to obtain a bull, the 

 dam of which grand-dam and great grand-dam have been distin- 

 guished for their excellent milking qualities. Most farmers quite 

 overlook the quality and pedigree of a bull, apparently thinking 

 the sire can have but little influence in producing' cows having 

 those points well developed, which constitute superior milkers. 



When it is known that the dam of a bull was an excellent dairy 

 cow, and that she descended from cows that stood almost without 

 a rival, for producing an abundant flow of milk, the most impor- 

 tant step has been taken toward a radical and permanent improve- 

 ment in dairy cows. If the bull is an inferior scrub or scalaw\ag, 

 he may be coupled with the very best cows that the country 

 affords, and there will be no assurance that the product will make 

 excellent cows. The next step in order Avill be, to select heifers 

 from cows that are superior milkers. In making such a selection, 

 the calf of an ill-formed cow should be rejected. If a cow have 

 a large head, is heavy before, and has a bull's neck, she will be 

 almost certain to be narrow behind, and contracted in the withers, 

 with a small bod\^, a small, ill-shapeu udder, and very large or 

 unusually small teats. Such a cow — and the country is full of 

 them — will never breed a superior, first-class milker, either for the 

 production of cheese or butter. The characteristics of an eligible 

 cow for a breeder for dairy purposes should show a liberal infu- 

 sion of some kind of improved stock — we care not whether it be 

 Hereford, Alderney, Durham, Devon, or the stock said to be 

 native breed — the cows of which are known to have been excel- 

 lent milkers for several previous years. The form of the cow is 

 of transcendent importance. She should have a small head and a 

 lad3'^-like neck, well cut up in the throat, with a little dewlap, 

 broad and deep in the brisket, with a mild eye, unusually broad 

 across the hips and pelvis, not very long-legged, nor having legs 

 too short. The udder should be broad and of a symmetrical form, 

 and not long and pendulous, like the nest of a Baltimore oriole. 

 Cows with such udders are seldom first-class milkers. They 

 should be broad in the pelvis and hips to insure greater ease and 

 certainty of delivery at the time of parturition. Those cows that 

 are narrow in the pelvis, if kept well, so that the foetus attains a 

 large size, will almost always experience extreme difiiculty when 

 calving; and they are often lost because they are too narrow in 



