37-i HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



method also has an immense advantage in the fact that results 

 are more rapidly obtained, and the various steps of improve- 

 ment more directly perceptible, from year to year. 



By the first method, that of building up a breed or family 

 from judicious selection of both sire and dam from our common 

 stock, the final attainment of success could hardly be expected 

 in the ordinary life of man. By the second, every successive 

 step may be one of progress and improvement, provided the 

 selection of the male is judicious. And this selection should be 

 made wholly with reference to the specific object we desire to 

 attain. If it is a class of cows for the butter dairy, take the 

 male from the breed distinguished for its rich milk, and its 

 butter making properties, and adhere to such a breed through 

 each successive stage of the effort. If it is cows for the milk or 

 the cheese dairy, select the male from a breed remarkable for its 

 large yield, and adhere to males of this character. This course, 

 when the selection has been made with proper care, has seldom 

 failed, and it offers advantages at the present time superior to 

 any other. 



The special reason for a resort to the pure bred male, in 

 crossing, is not so much that the particular individual animal 

 selected has the desired properties united and developed in 

 himself, as that they are hereditary in the breed to which he 

 belongs. The moment the line is crossed, and the pedigrees or 

 ancestry of the sire lost, uncertainty commences. The form of 

 a grade or cross-bred bull may be even better, in individual 

 cases, than that of the pure-bred one, but there is less hope of 

 bis transmitting the qualities for which the breed to which he 

 is allied is most noted. As already stated, we have the basis 

 in our common cattle of the most excellent dairy stock in the 

 world. Their defects are want of uniformity and uncertainty 

 in breeding, to a uniform high standard of quality. They are 



