CHAPTER X 

 BREEDING DAIRY CATTLE 



The breeding of dairy cattle offers a greater field of opera- 

 tion than any other in connection with the propagation of 

 farm animals. Perhaps in no other class is variation so great 

 or improvement so easily accomplished as in the improvement 

 of dairy animals, providing proper methods are used. The in- 

 creasing population is making increasing demands for milk and 

 its products, — butter and cheese ; — and while the supplying 

 of this demand, particularly in our large cities, is a very com- 

 plex problem, improvement in the production of dairy cattle 

 cannot be said to be a difficult task. In the past we have bred 

 dairy cattle without regard to their record of production. In 

 fact records of production were wanting, as none such were kept. 

 True, we have kept pedigrees of our dairy cattle for many 

 generations, but these pedigrees tell us only: the color, the 

 date of birth, the owner and his address, the sire and the dam, 

 none of which supplies us with information as to the merits 

 of the cow. What is equally true, we have estimated pro- 

 duction of dairy cattle from time immemorable by saying one 

 cow gives so many quarts, another so many quarts more, and 

 still another so many quarts less ; but such estimation is almost 

 worthless because of the great variation in the yield of in- 

 dividual cows from day to day. Perhaps two days a week a 

 cow will yield 15 quarts, the other five days only 10 quarts; and 

 in our estimation we are likely to remember the 15 quarts and 



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