44 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I916. 



heifer or heifers alone for a period of seven days would oe 

 absolutely prohibitive. It would cost him so much that he 

 would be foolish to enter the contest, even though he were 

 sure to win. 



Another factor enters here too. The men who are doing 

 advanced registry work are, to a considerable extent, well-to-do 

 or wealthy breeders, who are able and willing to hire expert 

 herdsmen, and give them special training in regard to the fit- 

 ting and handling of animals to make high advanced registry 

 records. The fitting and handling of animals for these high 

 records is a matter requiring the skill of an expert. The results 

 obtained may or may not have a significant bearing upon the 

 question of the true innate inherited capacity of the animal in 

 regard to milk production. Now the basic purpose of a Sires* 

 Futurity Test is to get trustworthy evidence on a practical 

 breeding problem. It aims to find out the true breeding worth 

 of different individuals and strains of blood. This means that 

 the test must be made under what might be called average 

 working conditions for cattle. The scientific correction of 

 records with respect to age and stage of lactation makes it 

 possible to carry out a Sires' Futurity Test at a central place 

 and at one time for all animals competing, and still get abso- 

 lutely reliable and perfectly fair results. This plan of testing 

 heifers all at the same time, regardless of when they freshen, 

 and then correcting the results on a scientific basis so as to 

 make them all strictly and justly comparable, eliminates for all 

 practical purposes the element of expert skill in jockeying cows 

 for high records, and puts the animals of the small and inex- 

 perienced breeder on a fair basis of competition with those 

 of the larger breeder, who from long experience in advanced 

 registry work knows all the ''tricks of the trade." 



In carrying out such Sires' Futurity Tests at a central place 

 and at a given time it is by no means necessary to have large 

 transportation costs or to subject the animals to dangerous risks 

 of catching cold, etc. In the first place the actual milking tests 

 should be made more or less local affairs, the heifers being 

 "brought to some center readily accessible to a group of en- 

 trants. For example, it would be perfectly fair at any time to 

 require that heifers competing in such a test within the borders 

 of Aroostook county should be brought to Aroostook Farm at 



