FIFTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 107 



Looking Forward 



Considerable progress has been made in dairying by- 

 selecting for breeding purposes the descendants of high 

 producers, but the most rapid progress can only be made 

 by looking forward as well as backward. The records of 

 the first five or six daughters determine with some degree 

 of certainty the true value of a dairy bull ; and it is doubt- 

 ful whether any bull, regardless of his breeding, should 

 head any well-bred herd until a number of his daughters 

 have been tested and found to have much higher records 

 than their dams. Until such time, however, as good proved 

 sires are made available, bulls with high-producing an- 

 cestry must be relied upon. When all dairy bulls are re- 

 quired to pass through a probationary period before they 

 are allowed to head a dairy herd, when only proved sires 

 are allowed to become the sires of many daughters, and 

 when the best of these sires are used to their full capacity, 

 then, and not until then, may a great advance in the econ- 

 omical production of our dairy herds be expected. 



The means of making this work successful are now at 

 hand. The cow-testing association, at little cost, keeps the 

 records of dams and daughters; and the bull association 

 makes it possible to keep a good dairy sire for 10 or 12 

 years, or as long as he is fit for service without danger of 

 inbreeding. Without fail, these two associations, when 

 properly managed, will in a few generations transform poor 

 scrub herds into herds of high production. 



Summary 



The ultimate goal of the bull association is better cows. 



The cooperative dairy-bull association is a farmers' 

 organization whose chief purpose is the breeding of better 

 dairy cows through the joint ownership, use, and systematic 

 exchange of prepotent purebred dairy bulls of high-pro- 

 ducing ancestry. 



The dairyman of limited means is the one who can 

 least afford the great losses that come from carelessness in 

 breeding. 



The first bull association in the United States was or- 



