CONDUCTING BREEDING INVESTIGATIONS 



597 



Cruickshank bull Champion of England is the striking feature of his 

 pedigree. 



The criticism of the above pedigree is not, it should be clearly under- 

 stood, directed at the method of recording pedigrees in the American 

 Shorthorn Herd-book, although it is a fair statement to make that the 

 method that has since been employed of recording simply the name of 

 sire and dam is more economical and just as satisfactory. Even by the 

 old method, however, the pedigrees are so recorded that the entire set 

 of ancestors may be determined. The point, however, is simply this, 

 that such pedigrees should not be used as standards of judgment of 

 ancestry, but rather those of the type shown in Fig. 230. 



FIG. 231. Tilly Alcartra. No. 123459, Holstein. Production for one year, 30451.4 Ib. 

 milk containing 951.2 Ib. butter fat (average teat 3.12 per cent.). 



The addition of other data to the pedigree indicative of the value 

 from a breeding or productive standpoint of the animals therein listed 

 adds greatly to its value, particularly to the new breeder who is not yet 

 fully familiar with the great names of breed history. The pedigree of 

 Tilly Alcartra 123,459, the record-breaking Holstein-Friesian cow por- 

 trayed in Fig. 231, is given in Fig. 230 along with data relative to the 

 performance and breeding value of the animals whose names appear 

 in the pedigree. A pedigree worked out like this one is a much safer 

 guide in judging merit than one which gives data proving that the animal 

 in question traced in the fourteenth generation three times to some 

 famous sire of ancient history. Performance should be insisted upon all 

 along the line, and when three or four generations of some subdivision 

 in a notable line fail to bring forth performing individuals, it is high time 



