THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



dairy herd return a profit, and, therefore, 

 would be banished if the owner were not so 

 careless in the matter of testing and measur- 

 ing individual yields. It is quite common to 

 hear a man, with a young cow for sale, say 

 that her mother was a fine milker, or that she 

 promises to be as good as her mother; but he 

 seems to forget that she owns a father, and 

 that more than half of her good or bad quali- 

 ties are transmitted' from the paternal side. 

 It is as important to know what kind of a 

 milker the father's mother was. 



In this country many people used to laugh 

 at pedigree, and considered thoroughbred ani- 

 mals no better than others; but during the 

 last ten or fifteen years there has been a grad- 

 ual change, as the results of breeding care- 

 fully selected animals have been demonstrated. 

 Probably the early scepticism had some ex- 

 cuse, for rash enthusiasm prompted many 

 people to import animals with pedigrees, with- 

 out any investigation of the owner's creden- 

 tials, and there are rogues in all callings. 



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