SELECTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL COW 117 



milking, a change was gradually made in the amount of milk 

 secreted, and probably to some extent in the quality as well. 

 While the wild cow possibly produced from one to two thou- 

 sand pounds of milk in a year, a good dairy cow of to-day 

 may produce more than this in a single month. 



It is a well-known fact and one easy to understand that 

 when any characteristic or function has been developed to a 

 higher degree in a breed of animals than existed originally, 

 the acquired characteristics may not be transmitted regularly. 

 There is a constant tendency for the characteristics of some 

 of the ancestors to appear. The farther the animal is de- 

 veloped from the original form, the more difficult, as a rule, is 

 the fixing of the acquired characteristics. This explains why 

 there is such a wide variation in the capacity of individual 

 cows to produce milk. While the wild cows presumably 

 varied but little in the milk produced, it is not uncommon 

 under present conditions for one cow to produce four or five 

 times as much, or even more, than another individual of the 

 same breed kept under similar conditions in the same herd. 

 These individual variations must be expected, and the higher 

 the development of the dairy cow is carried, the more diffi- 

 culty will be encountered in keeping up to the desired stand- 

 ard. 



The tendency in any race or breed of animals is to transmit 

 characteristics normal to that breed or race. This explains 

 the common observation that only a few of the progeny of a 

 cow of unusual dairy qualities are the equal of the dam, and 

 her offspring may be only ordinary for the breed. 



While the importance of the selection of the individual cow 

 has been recognized for a long time by those who have given 

 the subject thought, it is only within recent years that the 



