94 Cooperation in Agriculture 



THE COOPERATIVE BREEDING OF LIVE-STOCK 



The cooperative method furnishes a practical way by 

 which high-grade animals and the different breeds of 

 stock of a community can be improved and developed. 

 Little systematic effort has been made by the farmers 

 of the United States to improve the different kinds of 

 live-stock. Individual breeders have built up high-grade 

 herds and have improved different breeds, but American 

 farmers as a whole have not been affected by these efforts. 

 To be productive of results, animal-breeding must follow 

 well-defined lines. The breeders must understand the 

 fundamental principles of animal improvement, and then 

 the farmers must be organized before community breed- 

 ing can be undertaken. These qualifications or the abil- 

 ity to apply these principles in animal breeding are not 

 possessed by the average farmer. Under the cooperative 

 method, a systematic breeding plan can be adopted, the 

 method organized and systematized under a common 

 leadership, herds tested and weeded out, male animals 

 owned collectively, and the herds and breeds of a com- 

 munity improved and developed with the same degree 

 of efficiency that the successful individual breeder attains. 

 The cooperative breeding work can be organized around 

 the creamery and the cow-testing associations, or, when 

 the aim is to develop definite qualities in animals, such as 

 milk-producing qualities in cows, or a certain conforma- 

 tion or ability to lay on flesh for meat-producing purposes, 

 the movement may be organized independently. 



