136 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1917. 



5. NEW COOPERATIVE PROJECT. 



The Maine Agricultural Experiment Station wishes to call 

 attention to a plan for a new cooperative project which it will 

 take up with the breeders of Maine provided they are interested 

 in the matter. The most important thing which a breeder of 

 dairy cattle desires to know is whether his animals are trans- 

 mitting productive qualities to their progeny. In particular 

 this information is desired in regard to the herd bull, which 

 constitutes one-half of the herd. If by chance he is exercising 

 a deleterious effect on the productive qualities of the herd he 

 may in a few years time do a great deal of harm. It would ap- 

 pear to be beyond doubt or question for practical purposes, that 

 if a bull's daughters are on the average poorer milkers, or poor- 

 er in the quality of their milk, than the dams from which they 

 came, then the bull which produced them is exercising a harmful 

 effect upon the herd. On the other hand, if a bull's daughters 

 are on the average measurably better than the dams from which 

 they came in productive qualities, then that bull is exercising 

 a beneficial effect on the herd. What the breeder wants to know 

 at the earliest possible moment is which of these two categories 

 his herd bull falls into. The writer has worked out a plan 

 whereby it is believed that it will be possible to furnish this 

 sort of information to the breeders of the State more quickly 

 and in a much more definite and precise form than they have 

 ever been able to acquire it hitherto. 



The plan of cooperation involves the following points : 

 Any farmer who will comply with certain conditions may at any 

 time have made for him by the Experiment Station an Official 

 Daughter-Dam test. 



The conditions are : 



(a). That he shall have in his herd at the same time both 

 the dam and her daughter to be tested. Or failing the actual 

 possession of the animals at the .time he must be able to furnish 

 satisfactory records of the milk production of the missing ani- 

 mal, either daughter or dam, together with the other necessary 

 information for making the test. 



