64 



HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN CATTLE. 



This was not a big, but a fair, record, and showed the cow Sjoerd to be val- 

 uable as a butter producer. The record was afterward published, with this 

 comment : " It is true that individuals of breeds may be better or worse than 

 the average, but we have no reason to think that Sjoerd is either. We believe 

 she is a fair average." Since that date, selecting, breeding, and testing for 

 butter has received a very strong impetus ; and it is not strange that better 

 Holstein-Friesian Dutter cows have come to the front. 



Messrs. Wells & Sons of Wethersfield, Conn., write : "Below we give you 

 the average record of butter made by fourteen of our herd for the past year 

 1882. 



"We have milked and set in creamers, the past season, the milk from two 

 two-year-old, nine three-year-old, and three six-year-old Holstein-Friesian 

 cows. We have just footed up the number of spaces sent to the creamery and 

 the number of spaces it took each month to make a pound of butter, and find 

 they have made in all 5649 Ibs. of butter, equivalent to 403 8-16 Ibs. for each 

 cow. 



"These cows dropped their calves in the months of January, February, 

 March and April. They were milked on the average 270 days, many of them 

 being due to drop their next calves inside of eleven months from their last. 



"The cows were fed after dropping their calves till put in pasture daily all 

 the good hay they would eat, and in addition one-half bushel of mangel wurt- 

 zel, four quarts wheat bran, two quarts corn meal, and two quarts cotton seed 

 meal mixed. 



"When put in pasture they were fed (owing to short pasturing) hay morn- 

 ing and night with four quarts of meal and bran mixed. 



"This herd was not fed with any expectation of reporting a butter record." 



All conversant with the subject will concede that 300 Ibs. of butter from a 

 mature cow in a year is unusually large, even from butter-bred cows. 



When we consider that Messrs. Wells & Sons' herd included two-year-olds, 

 and that the entire lot averaged but a little over three years old, and that their 

 average product of butter per cow per year was 403 Ibs., we are compelled to 

 say that the Messrs. Wells' Holsteins are far above the herds of specially bred 

 butter cows. 



In 1891 Messrs. Wells further reported the butter yield of their herd as 

 follows: " We give below the records made in our herd, and all but three have 

 been made since January 1, 1887. In our butter tests the butter is thoroughly 

 washed with water in a churn, then taken out and well worked over with one 

 ounce of salt to the pound and then made into one solid mass and weighed. 



" Four of these heifers, classed as three years old, were nearly four when 

 making this record. As thirteen of these cows did not average more than 

 three years and eight months in age, we think this is a very handsome butter 

 showing for our herd. It took on the average a fraction over 22 Ibs. of 

 milk for one pound of butter. 



"Considering that we have but twenty breeding animals in all, and four of 

 them have not been tested yet, but we know they will do fairly well, we think 

 we may justly claim our herd as among the best butter herds in this country." 



