94 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



required by each cow to produce a hundred pounds 

 of butter fat. A certain standard price of cattle foods 

 could be assumed for this purpose. Keep track of and 

 tabulate in the pedigrees of each animal all such im- 

 portant facts as freedom from tuberculosis ; the number 

 of strong calves each cow produces during her life ; the 

 temperament, docility or viciousness of each cow and 

 bull. Use a score card system of records to preserve 

 the facts concerning form, color, comeliness, weight 

 and other general facts concerning each animal and 

 family. Devise a system of tabulating these records so 

 as to show the individual values and the transmitting 

 powers of each mature individual. Show also the pros- 

 pective breeding values of all young animals, as indi- 

 cated by the average values of the ancestral blood lines 

 centering in them. In this manner the poorest stock 

 could be rapidly eliminated. Such a scheme of statisti- 

 cal pedigrees would soon so accredit all the^best fami- 

 lies of animals that the surplus of bulls and the heifers 

 of the best blood lines could be sold at high prices to 

 breeders and farmers in other counties, in other States 

 and even in foreign countries. Let the association in 

 some practical way own or, better, merely control, all 

 the very best individuals of the best blood lines pro- 

 duced in the county, that they may not be sold but used 

 as the basis of improvement of the county family or 

 strain. Let the members keep on purchasing of the 

 best procurable blood from other sources. In this way 

 secure and keep in the county the choicest blood so 

 that no outside breeder or other county can claim super- 

 ior strains of the Freeborn Jerseys. No doubt some 

 equitable form of organization could be devised that 

 would allow each member to own his cows and sell all 

 but the few which promise to be among the elect to be 

 reserved for county breeding. It might prove best to 

 have the association pay for and hold the ownership of 

 animals which it desires shall not be allowed to be sent 

 out or used outside the county. Every generation of 

 cattle would thus become a bovine aristocracy above 



