52 , DUAL PURPOSE CATTLE 



an American journalists happy thought, when writing of the Red 

 Polled in Kansas, as "The Farmer's Cow," given place to a much 

 more compact and accurate description: "The Dual-Purpose Cow." 

 It may truly be said the characteristic just named is a modern in- 

 stance of evolution carefully thought out on lines corresponding with 

 what we now know as the Mendel law. John Reeve could not fail to 

 see that success depended on careful selection of the true dual-pur- 

 pose blood-red polled cow the "new breed," and a withdrawal of 

 such of the progeny as were, wholly of the Suffolk type, and those 

 which were of the mixed type. It is a singular fact that a Devon 

 schoolmaster, about the same time as John Reeve found the secret 

 of hybridisation, also found it by the cultivation of a variety of the 

 pea (as did the Brunn Augustinian Abbot, Gregor Johann Mendel, 

 some fifty years later); but he did not bring it to perfection because 

 he failed to cast aside growths that did not wholly fulfill the ideal 

 "new type." 



The many records of milk yield which have been published since 

 1886, and quoted in foregoing pages, show that there was, thirty 

 years ago, much diversity in the detail of the number of days in 

 the year's yield. That since there has been much attention paid 

 to the production of milk after the birth of the first and second 

 calves there is a much larger proportion of cows which milk steadily 

 300 days and over in the year. And that no small amount of the im- 

 provement is due to the judgment used in the choice of the sire for 

 its dam's proven worth. 



The old-time fault of a too early breeding of heifers is now 

 well-nigh unknown. In its place we have much more attention paid 

 to the young stock, so that the display of yearling and two-year- 

 old Red Polled heifers at a show, and even on a farm, is "a thing 

 of beauty," and, if owners and breeders be wise, also "a joy forever" 

 to old and young folk. When opportunity serves, such stock live 

 their natural life on a wealthy marsh, meadow, or park, so that 

 when the first calf is born there is full life for it as well as for the dam. 

 The evidence of this is seen in the dozens of records of a continuous 

 yield of milk quoted in the essay. One such instance is found in 

 the last record published at Whitlingham: 12078 Brisk W2 extend- 

 ed its yield, after the birth of the first calf, to 713 days. After the 

 heifer had 63 days rest, the second calf's birth was followed by a 

 yield of 7,225 *4 lb. milk in the remaining 294 days of the year, and 

 a yield, after the third calf, of 8,458 lb. milk in 350 days of the 365 

 in that year. Her further history is not available since she was 

 sold when the Red Polled stock had to be offered by public auction 

 the Norwich Town Council being required by governmental author- 

 ities to take possession of the farm. In many another instance the 

 success of the practice of a prolonged milk period after the birth 

 of the first calf cannot be determined, because the evidence was too 

 strong to be resisted by the buyer of cows, breeders as well as dairy- 

 men, who sought after "a good milker." 



Another bit of similar Red Polled history given in an earlier 

 page extends to the present time, and has its worth on both sides 

 of the Atlantic ocean. The transcript of T. group records contains 

 those of 2716 Coronet Tl, and some of her descendants. Coronet's 

 first calf was born when a record of milk yield had not begun at 



