142 REPORT OF THE SCOTTISH COMMISSION 



Jerseys and to a less extent Gruernseys are common in Eastern 

 Canada, where indeed their blood often dominates the herd. 

 Delicate as we consider them at home, these cows seem to stand even 

 the Canadian winters without inconvenience. At Toronto we found 

 perhaps the best exhibition of Jerseys to be seen anywhere. The 

 fact that in the Aged Bull Class the winner at the recent Newcastle 

 Eoyal Show was a competitor and failed to find a place, points its 

 own moral. In the States this breed is the peculiar favourite 

 of millionaires, and has been boomed by them to a considerable 

 extent of late years. 



A word must be given to the general purpose grade cow that 

 makes up the bulk of the dairy herds. She is a big-boned, large- 

 framed, rather coarse looking animal, capable if properly mated 

 of producing good beef cattle, but she seldom has the points of a 

 really good dairy cow. She costs the farmer from £7 to £12, the 

 price often varying according to locality, and when fat she sells 

 for some two pounds less money. 



Milk Yields 



Taken as a whole the dairy herds are capable of great improve- 

 ment. The average yield of the Canadian cow is stated at a little 

 over 300 gallons per annum, ranging, according to the returns of 

 1900, from 4038 lbs. in Ontario to as low as 2184 lbs. in Prince 

 Edward Island. These figures contrast most unfavourably not only 

 with Scottish and Danish records but also with the records of well 

 fed and well selected herds in Canada. Repeatedly in the course of 

 our journey we had satisfactory evidence of averages that were much 

 higher. In Ontario one herd of sixty-five cows had a record of over 

 10,000 lbs., and even in Prince Edward Island several herds have 

 averaged over 7500 lbs. At Truro College Farm we found a Holstein 

 cow with a record of over 18,000 lbs., and the average there of all 

 breeds up to the time of our visit worked out at over 1000 lbs. per 

 cow per month, which promised a yield of about 1000 gallons a year. 



One receives these contrasting figures with a sense of bewilder- 

 ment. With an average of a little over 200 gallons — and of course 

 many herds must be well under that average — how can a Prince 

 Edward Island dairyman go on at all ? More bewildering still, 

 why should he ? Naturally this state of matters is satisfactory 

 neither to the Government nor to the farmer, and a remedy is being 

 sought and will be found. 



Milk Records 



Profiting by Danish experience milk records are being kept, and 

 an inquiry — as yet difficult to meet — has arisen for bulls of a good 

 milking strain. Testing associations have been formed, and twenty 

 of them are recorded to have been in operation in Ontario and Quebec 

 during 1906. This figure, if we contrast it with the 402 similar 

 bodies existing in a small country like Denmark in 1904, shows that 

 the promoters of the movement have as yet but little more than 

 broken ground. It is needless perhaps to add that in this as in 



