80 THE COW 



terested in their dairy qualities beyond the point 

 of insuring that the dam will give enough milk 

 to rear a good calf by suckling. The conformation 

 and temperament which give a heavy loin and a 

 meaty thigh, together with early maturity and the 

 tendency to accumulate body fat, is directly an- 

 tagonistic to great dairy performance. The story 

 comes down to us how Booth, the great Shorthorn 

 breeder, developed a strain of cows in which the 

 milk-making function was almost lost, and in his 

 stables a calf stood between two cows because one 

 could not properly support her calf. When he was 

 an old man and showing visitors through his 

 stables, it was his pleasure to walk down the long 

 alleys behind those great mountains of flesh and 

 slapping their broad rumps cry, "Gentlemen: 

 What does a few quarts of milk from a cow amount 

 to anyway?" 



A man's success or failure as a dairyman em- 

 phatically does not depend on his choice of a breed, 

 assuming, of course, that he chooses one of the 

 special dairy kinds. The different individuals of 

 a breed differ far more from each other than do 

 the breeds as a whole. It is not too much to say 

 that the breed is relatively unimportant as com- 

 pared with markets, soils, rations and stable care. 

 It is of supreme importance, however, that he have 

 good individuals of some breed, and possibly even 

 more, that he believe in and love his business and 

 be a student of it. 



