446 GENETICS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE 
From an economic standpoint, the importance of high production must be 
emphasized, because it is closely associated with economy of production. 
Fig. 184 based upon 443 yearly farm records of dairy cows shows clearly 
how closely net income is dependent upon high yield. 
The comparison of other pure-bred livestock with the general average 
is not so direct, but is sufficiently striking. The great trotting sire, Peter 
the Great, with 230 performing offspring to his credit, forty of which had 
records of 2:10 or better, at 21 years of age sold for $50,000. He 
was considered so valuable that his service price was placed at $400. 
$2.00 - 
| | | 
1.90 } 
10} \ eee 
41.70 i | 
a 
“4 1.60 
3 
4 1.50 \ 
— 
= 1.40 
S 
21.30 
8 1.10 PS 
2 
8 1.00 
eee | 
-90 @ 
-80 
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 
Thousands of Lbs, of Milk per Year 
Fic. 184.—Relation of yield of cow to feed cost of milk. (From 1915 Yearbook, U. 8. 
Dept. of Agr.) 
Thirty-two pure-bred Percheron horses sold at auction for an average of 
$705 per head. A half interest in the Percheron stallion Carnot was sold 
in recent years for $20,000. Overton Harris sold at public auction 61 
head of Hereford cattle at an average price of $1246; and at about 
the same time the American Hereford Breeders’ Association sold 45 
head at an average price of $1005. Within the last few years two yearling 
Holstein-Friesian bull calves have changed hands at public auction at 
$20,000 each. Forty-six head of pure-bred swine were sold at an average 
of $214 each. These figures, all of which are of sales which have taken 
place within recent years, are far above the average of the breeds which 
they represent, but they are by no means isolated records. The average 
auction price of pure-bred beef cattle for breeding purposes is at least 
five times as high as the average farm value of beef cattle, and about 
the same ratio probably obtains in other breeds of livestock. The figures 
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