No. 4.] DAIRYING. 71 



they are fattened and sold as veal. Only a few of the most 

 promising from the very best cows are preserved. Among 

 the heifers, more than half of them are sold as veal. Perhaps 

 about one-third, as I have been told, are reared and bred, 

 brought around to milk. Another selection takes place after 

 the first milking period, and only those that have, besides 

 being well bred and well developed, given good account of 

 themselves in the dairy, are kept and allowed to keep up the 

 breed. In this way one of the finest breeds of dairy animals 

 that we have has been produced. So, in the United States, 

 if we would select the best, and the best only, after a little 

 while we would have good stock and plenty of it. I believe 

 you do not realize what an enormous chance for selection 

 there is. I have figured out repeatedly, for my class, the 

 possibilities in difierent families of animals along this line. 

 For instance, take a single pair of cattle ; if each female 

 produces three other females, in the course of one hundred 

 and twenty-six 3'ears there would be animals enough born 

 the one hundred and twenty-sixth year to occupy every foot 

 of land in the United States, including Alaska. Pigs multi- 

 ply so rapidly that in twenty-five years you would have about 

 sixteen pigs to the square foot over the entire country. 

 Take the rate of increase ascribed to bacteria. Dr. Conn 

 states that they multiply once in twenty minutes. In four 

 days the entire ocean would l)e filled with these organisms. 

 Now, we ought to remember this and take advantage of it, 

 and not keep anything and everything, but only the best. 



Another thing that occurs to me is, that very few of you 

 know what your cows are doing. You do not keep records. 

 If you weighed carefully night and morning the milk your 

 cows produced, and took occasional tests, so as to judge of 

 the quality of the milk, — if you keep account for a year, I 

 think you would have some surprises at the end of the year. 

 Some of the cows that started in so big would disappoint 

 you when you got the average, and would, perhaps, fall 

 behind some of the steady ones. Perhaps some of those 

 that gave an enormous amount of milk would disappoint you 

 when you came to the test, and you would find that some 

 of the ordinary, moderate plodders were some of the best 

 money-makers. I think it will pay you to take the weights 



