24 SELECTIONS FOR BREEDING. 



determine the transmission of these qualities, especially 

 when they are as strongly marked as they are in the 

 Ayrshire or the Jersey races. Others, however, main- 

 tain that it is more important to the perfection of their 

 dairy to make a good choice of bulls than of heifers, 

 because the property of giving much milk is more 

 surely transmitted by the male than the female. Others 

 still maintain that both parents are represented in the 

 offspring, but that it is impossible to say beforehand 

 what parts of the derivative system are to be ascribed 

 to the one parent and what to the other, and that there 

 is a blending and interfusion of the qualities of both 

 which prevent the body of their progeny being mapped 

 out into distinct regions, or divided into separate sets 

 of organs, of which we can say, " This is from the 

 father, that from the mother." 



Till this question is settled, it is safe, in breeding for 

 the dairy, to adhere to the rule of selecting only ani- 

 mals whose progenitors on both sides have been distin- 

 guished for their milking qualities. But where the his- 

 tory of either is unknown, a resort to a well-known 

 breed, remarkable for its dairy qualities, is of no small 

 importance ; since, though the immediate ancestors of 

 a male may not be known, if he belongs to a dairy 

 breed, it is fair to presume that his progenitors were 

 milkers. A study and comparison of the size and 

 form of the milk mirror, and other points, indicated by 

 Guenon, on a subsequent page, are worthy of careful 

 consideration in selecting animals to breed from for the 

 dairy, not only among pure-bred animals, but especially 

 in crossing. In the scale of points adopted in England 

 and this country as the standard of perfection for an 

 Ayrshire cow, the udder, on which Guenon placed so 

 much reliance, is valued at twelve times as much as 



