178 TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 



begets like/' and if the bull has a high-producing ancestry, 

 high-producing sisters, and the other female members of his 

 family are high producers, we are reasonably certain that he 

 has inherited true dairy qualities of a high order which he will 

 transmit to his offspring. 



As a fine example of a pedigree with performance, the 

 pedigree of the Guernsey bull, May King of Ingleside 12558, 

 is herewith presented. Such a bull commands too high a price 

 to permit using him on grade cows, and the average dairyman 

 seeking a sire cannot expect to obtain a bull with a pedigree equal 

 to this one, although he may be able to secure a son or grandson 

 of such a bull at the price he can afford to pay. 



There is danger of over-emphasizing the importance of 

 pedigrees when breeding any kind of live stock, and this is es- 

 pecially true if records of tests are included in the pedigrees, as 

 is the case with many trotting horses and dairy cattle. Some 

 breeders have selected and mated their animals solely upon 

 the basis of records, without any consideration of individuality. 

 Animal breeding is not successfully supervised when the owner 

 decides upon matings from pedigrees spread out before him in 

 his office or by the parlor lamp. If this is done, and individ- 

 uality is neglected, defects of conformation may gain a foothold 

 in his herd and eventually defeat his plans. For instance, two 

 animals may be selected for mating because of the excellence 

 of their breeding; in other words, the mating looks good on 

 paper; but weakness of constitution may be common to both 

 of them, and if so, it is probable that their offspring will exhibit 

 this defect in greater degree, so as to prevent the fulfillment of 

 the offspring's inherited tendency to high production. 



Enough attempts at selecting and mating animals purely 

 on the basis of records have met with failure to show that such 

 procedure is very liable to wreck the herd. The breeder must 

 refuse to be carried away by performance to the extent of buying 

 merely a pedigree. Choose several good individuals, and then 

 let the pedigrees be the basis for the final choice. A meritorious 

 individual should accompany the meritorious pedigree. 



Advantages of dairy farming. Dairy farming has the fol- 

 lowing advantages: 



1. The dairy cow is well adapted to diversified and inten- 

 sive farming where the farmer strives to produce the greatest 

 possible income from a small acreage. Striking examples of this 

 fact are found in Holland, Denmark, and the Island of Jersey. 



