no . BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the average the two-year-old heifers produced 70 per cent of 

 what they produced as mature cows; the three-year-olds pro- 

 duced 80 per cent, and the four-year-olds approximately 90 per 

 cent of what they did as mature cows. When you try to get 

 an absolute figure it is a difficult matter; it depends upon the 

 breed. A Holstein that did not produce 6,000 pounds of milk 

 as a two-year-old would not be doing very much. A Jersey 

 heifer that did not produce 4,500 pounds would not be doing 

 very much. Unless there is some reasonable excuse for the 

 heifer, you are perfectly safe in selling her if she does not do 

 well in the first place. You can see after the heifer has been 

 milked a month whether she is going to be any good or not. 

 I think the best practice is to milk the heifer for one year, and 

 then decide at the end of that time whether you w^ill keep her 

 or not, and if you decide to sell her keep her until she produces 

 her second calf, because the milk will be good and the calf is 

 as apt to be a good cow, if of a good size, as if the heifer were 

 a better producer. Everything goes to show that in the same 

 breed, cows in the same line of breeding follow the sire rather 

 more strongly than they do the mother. 



Mr. TuTTLE. Then, if I understand you, if you had a cow 

 that was not good for much, but her dam and her sisters were 

 good, and she was bred to a good sire, you would not hesitate 

 to raise her calf. 



Professor Eckles. Well, I will tell you the difference in 

 that respect is not as great as we have been inclined to think at 

 times. If she was from a good line of breeding and of a good 

 male, and she was bred to a sire known to produce good 

 animals, I would not hesitate to raise her offspring. 



Mr. Porter. When would you have the heifer freshen; 

 two or three years? 



Professor Eckles. Well, our practice has been, among the 

 smaller breeds, like the Jerseys, to have them come in to milk 

 at twenty-six or twenty-eight months. I do not care to have 

 them come in earlier. We prefer our Hoi steins to be fresh at 

 about thirty months. You understand we have four different 

 breeds in our herd, including the Jersey and the larger Holsteins. 

 I have accumulated a large amount of experimental data in the 

 last seven years, while working on this point, that goes to 



