176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Specific Breeding for Dairy Purposes. 



One of the most uneconomic conditions that prevails to- 

 day is the loose, impractical notions that exist among farm- 

 ers on the question of breeding. The farmers will concur 

 with you that if you would win at trotting, you must breed 

 for trotting ; if 3-011 would hunt fowls, you must have a dog 

 bred to that purpose ; if you would harvest grain to the 

 highest economy, you must have a self-binding reaper ; if 

 you would weave cotton cloth, your machine must be con- 

 structed for that purpose ; if you would sew, it must be 

 with a sewing machine. On all these things and hundreds 

 more he is clear and logical in his judgment. But with a 

 great host of farmers the moment you show them a cow 

 they are lost in a fog of the wildest conjecture. They will 

 buy a Jersey sire for richness of milk ; then in a year or so 

 a Holstein for quantity ; then a Guernsey for color of but- 

 ter ; finally, they will cap all climaxes by buying a Short- 

 horn for more size and more meat. So, as you travel over 

 the country and look at the herds of cattle, like those of 

 Jacob, "ring-streaked and speckled," you can see what this 

 hodge-podge, general-purpose and no-purpose-in-particular 

 idea has done for our cattle. 



One fact I wish to state at this point : the cow that comes 

 from a long single line of dairy-bred ancestors will take her 

 food and work it up into milk solids much more econom- 

 ically than the dual-purpose or beef cow. This was shown 

 very clearly at the World's Fair trial in Chicago, and at the 

 model dairy test at the Pan- American. Jay I. See, the 

 famous Wisconsin trotting horse, trotted his mile in 2.10 

 on 12 quarts of oats. Here was shown marvellous economy 

 of food expenditure for the results given. The Poland 

 China or any of the breeds of swine bred to a fattening 

 purpose are so economic of digestion and assimilation that 

 they will make double the weight on the same cost of feed 

 that the Arkansas razor back will. 



But let me cite facts. "Hoard's Dairyman," in 1900, 

 took a census of 100 herds of cows owned by patrons of 

 creameries in Iowa. That State is the paradise of the 



