BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD. 



11 



enough to be retained in the herd. The offspring of even the very best bred 

 ancestry needs to be subjected to rigid selection. The only way to do this 

 intelligently is to actually know what every cow in the herd is capable of 

 producing, and to apply the same test to the heifers as soon as they come 

 into milk. It is not always advisable to reject a heifer from the results of 

 the test made during her first period of lactation. The inferior animals 

 of defective udder, or seriously defective form, can easily be culled out by 

 the first test; but those of less prominent defects sometimes need to be re- 

 tained longer, and in some instances heifers that promise well during the 

 first period of lactation do not fulfill this promise by subsequent development. 



COLLEGE LILY- ABERDEEN-ANGUS. 

 Yearly Butter Record, 387 Pounds; Net Profit, $46.16. 



The feeding and general management of a dairy herd are an important 

 factor in the results attained by the dairy herd. Excellence of breeding 

 and inherited dairy function, may be set at naught by improper methods. 

 Many cows never milk well because they never have a chance, and are never 

 properly fed for milk production. If the same kindly treatment and con- 

 stant attention bestowed upon the dairy cattle of the Channel Islands and 

 Holland and Denmark, could be given to the dairy herds of our country, it 

 would, in a great majority of cases, lead to double the present production. 

 The modern dairy cow is a highly organized, sensitive, and artificial crea- 



