CHAPTER XXIX. 



Alternate Milking and Breeding ^vith Cows. 

 Maintaining Large Yield by Selection and Inheritance. 



The size of milk cows generally is small, and in the 

 dairy localities and districts— ^excepting some old home- 

 raised herdSj or families of cows — the size is not much 

 larger ; as mostly the new dairy herds are formed by 

 gathering up such cows as may be for sale, in the non- 

 dairying parts of the country. A chief reason why many 

 cows are small is : They are raised from small calves ; and 

 as calves are the basement story upon which the future 

 cow is built, the size of the cow ultimately corresponds 

 with her previous size as a calf Small calves are chiefly 

 the result of dwarfed growth in the embryo, previous to 

 its birth and breathing as a calf The cow race can be 

 continued in no other way than by breeding. Milk itself 

 originates in the last stages of the breeding process, and 

 is provided to continue the breed, by maintaining the calf 

 till it becomes able to gather its own subsistence. Mam- 

 mary or udder-supply blood is produced and conveyed to 

 the udder to provide milk for maintaining the calf; and, 

 being a special supply for supplying the demand of the 

 offspring, the blood from which milk is formed may cor- 

 rectly be called breeding blood. The ovarian and uterine 

 blood-supply, provided to sustain the ante-pregnant and 

 embryo stages of breeding, is also breeding blood ; and 

 the effective cause of calves being small is : The supply of 

 breeding blood to the embryo is so small that it cannot 

 grow fast or become large, and therefore makes only a 



