234 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



judgment also assist the breeder in his selection, but even the most 

 experienced breeders and keenest judges often purchase animals which 

 turn out quite unsuitable as sires. The individual merits or records of 

 the parents are exceedingly important factors, but by no means can you 

 rely on these to enable you to select a suitable sire. Luck or chance, up 

 to the present, seems to outweigh all the other factors combined in the 

 selection of a sire. 



Another problem is how to induce breeders of commercial stock and 

 even breeders of pure-bred dairy stock to keep their bulls until such time 

 as the value of their progeny can be determined, and then to retain, so 

 long as they will produce stock, those sires which are proved to be suitable. 

 This question is of the greatest importance in dairy herds, where frequently 

 the bull is dead when his daughters are proved to be good yielders of 

 milk and butter-fat. Well-bred bulls should be retained until the 

 daughters have demonstrated their sire's true value, and, by the exclusive 

 use of such pure-bred bulls, a real advance would be made in the breeding 

 of dairy stock. 



Many pedigree herds and flocks have made names or high reputations 

 simply as the result of having one prepotent sire, and when that sire died 

 these herds for years afterwards lost their reputation for high-class stock. 

 If the animal geneticists could show us how to diagnose a prepotent sire 

 or how to breed animals with this hereditary trait and make breeding more 

 of a certainty and less of a gamble, it would encourage and give a stimulus 

 to the breeding of high-class animals, which would reach much further 

 than any form of State subsidy given directly to breeders of pedigree 

 stock, and would be worth millions in money to stock breeders throughout 

 the world. 



Makketing and Grading. 



The marketing and grading of animals and their products is a very 

 wide subject, and one which could only be dealt with effectively by 

 devoting a special paper to it alone. I will, however, touch briefly on 

 one or two points. 



In Great Britain until recently practically no attention has been paid 

 to the grading for marketing purposes of animals or animal products, and 

 those measures which have been taken are entirely voluntary. In Ireland 

 voluntary schemes have been in operation since 1900, but with such small 

 success that compulsory measures for the grading of eggs were put into 

 operation in 1924 by legislation in Northern Ireland, and similar legislation 

 for the grading of eggs and dairy products was adopted by the Irish Free 

 State. It is anticipated that, in the near future, further legislation will 

 be passed in Ireland for the grading of pigs and other products. 



In Canada voluntary measures were tried for many years, but both the 

 Government and the farmers in that country were ultimately convinced 

 of the necessity for compulsory powers, with the result that laws of the 

 most drastic character are now in force in that Dominion insisting upon 

 the grading of all animal products, both for export and home consumption. 



New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and many foreign countries also 

 have passed similar legislation for certain products. 



These countries are all competitors of ours, and by means of legislation 



