CHAPTER XVI. 



BREEDING SPECIAL PURPOSE CATTLE. 



The breeders of special-purpose dairy cattle are an 

 energetic and persistent class. They have long and 

 aggressively contended that specialization in cattle is 

 not only highly important but that it is the only true 

 philosophy. The large annual net returns from certain 

 dairy cows in experiment station tests and in private 

 trials have been used as a powerful argument against 

 trying to unite beef quality with high dairy ability in 

 breeds of dairy cattle. The theory that the breeder of 

 dairy cattle should actually get rid of beefiness has few 

 opponents. The advocates of this theory have done 

 much to bring about a very useful change in the show 

 judging of dairy classes. 



The experiments by Prof. Haecker of the Minne- 

 sota Experiment Station have brought out clearly the 

 general physiological proposition that large abdomen, 

 good udder, spareness of meat and rather light weight 

 of frame, together with vigor, are the combination of 

 form which generally goes with the hereditary efficien- 

 cy in giving the largest returns in value of dairy prod- 

 ucts above cost of. food. As the years go on these 

 general physiological characters become more and more 

 ' emphasized, while such characters as slope of ribs, 

 form of head, size and number of milk wells, escutch- 

 eon and length of tail are being relegated to the minor 

 places they should occupy in the dairy cow score card, 

 or are left out altogether. Prof. Haecker and other 

 experimenters, who have made the best dairy cows 

 stand out so very prominently as individual producers 

 of values, have done no end of good to the beef and 

 dual-purpose types of cattle, as well as to dairy cattle. 

 By inaugurating statistical methods of comparing the 



