VAN PELT'S COW DEMONSTRATION 



though they do prove themselves extremely valuable in keep- 

 ing up the fertility of the farm. 



The scarcity and high price of good cows render it 

 impossible for everyone, or even a large proportion of those 

 who milk cows, to dispose of the animals they are now milk- 

 ing and fill their places with the more desirable type. 



There is a method, however, of superseding the common 

 cow with good individuals that is practical and advisable. 

 That is by selection and breeding. 



Every breed of improved live stock known today has 

 been developed by following well known laws of breeding 

 and selection. The -greatest of these laws is "like begets 

 like or the likeness of some ancestor." Never was there a 

 law more true, and he who is satisfied to milk and breed 

 offspring from non-productive cows with the same sort of 

 ancestry may rest assured that he will never secure a great 

 cow during the lifetime of drudgery that milking scrub 

 cows assures. 



Improved Sires 



The solution of the problem of stocking farms with good 

 cows rests largely upon the use of improved sires. The 

 first consideration in selecting a sire should be the productive 

 records of his maternal ancestry, that of his dam being the 

 most important but dependent upon the records and individ- 

 uality of the granddams, great-granddams and back through 

 the pedigree for at least six generations. 



There are many who would not think of using other 

 than a pure-bred recorded sire and still in making the selec- 

 tion no consideration is given except the question of whether 

 or not "papers" accompany the bull. These papers are always 

 valuable, not so much because they indicate that the animal 

 is pure bred, as because they tell of the history of the animal's 

 ancestry. Thousands of pure-bred bulls are in use at this 

 time whose purity of blood is boasted by their owners yet 

 whose pedigrees say : "This bull's ancestors back for six gen- 

 erations were all veritable scrubs from the standpoint of milk 

 and butter-fat production, for there never has been a cow 

 in the whole family that would give enough milk to raise her 

 calf respectably." "Like produces like or the likeness of 

 some ancestor." It makes no difference how good the cows 

 in the present generation, the use of such a bull means retro- 

 gression and accounts for the fact that, on the general farm, 

 cows are becoming poorer every generation. Bulls are being 

 sold to thoughtless farmers at high prices under the cloak 

 of registration papers, regardless of the story the papers tell. 

 It is the same old story of the signature on the contract re- 



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