Milhing and Breeding. 255 



fore full term, than the calves of cows that are milked 

 either close or late during their pregnancy. And when 

 calves get all the cow's milk, as in many thousands of 

 instances in the cattle-breeding sections of the West and 

 far West, they grow as large in six months as average- 

 yearlings in dairy sections, and in States further East and 

 North,* which clearly shows that less than full nutrition 

 does not make full-sized calves. We call attention to 

 these fundamental facts to show why cows are generally 

 small, namely : Because their breeding blood is divided 

 between two opposing demands, satisfying neither in full. 

 Half the breeding blood can only make half-*izedf em- 

 bryos and calves, through the supply of the placenta or 

 the udder. And small or only half-sized calves can rarely 

 develop into good-sized cows. In brief, the size or ex- 

 tent of calf-growth is certainly limited to the extent of 

 calf-nutrition, and small calves make small cOws ; and so 

 cows become small from limited supplies of nutrition and 

 limited growth in their embryo and calf forms, or during 

 their earliest stages of life. 



True, some small cows yield much milk, but this is the 

 result, in part, of inherited forms, and additional increase 

 of such forms, by long-continued demand for milk at the 

 udder, and long-continued distention of its supplying ar- 

 teries aided by activity and good digestion. The pro- 



* On our own small stock farm, and otliers much larger, in Plymouth Co., 

 Iowa, many such cases are met with. 



t Dr. Henry Tanner. Professor of Rural Economy, Queen's College, Birm- 

 ingham, England, says in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society: 

 " The animals which breed with least difficulty yield the best supplies of 

 milk, and produce the most Aeai^A?/ antZ mgrorows offspring." * * "We 

 have suffered them to deteriorate in value as breeding animals by the de- 

 crease of their milking capabilities." * * "A short supply of milk is in- 

 dicative of enfeebled breeding powers." Prof. Tanner is incorrect in these 

 statements, for milking pregnant cows withdraws the blood devoted to form- 

 ing milk, from the support of the embryos, by diverting it to the udder, so 

 reducing the means of embryo nutrition, and lessening the power of cowe to 

 breed either vigorous or large calves. When any increase of blood is used 

 to form milk, the products of digestion are diverted from the breeding organ, 

 thereby weakening breeding power by withdrawing blood from the breeding 

 process, the result in many cases being dwarfed calves or starved and 

 aborted embryos. 



