ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 119 



you in the printed matter which we will furnish to your Secre- 

 tary. I have learned to place great stress upon this pedigree 

 which nature makes. Nature makes no mistakes. She is very 

 careful of her record. Man may sometimes make mistakes in 

 reading the record, but when a man has had experience and 

 careful observation and has made a study of this record of 

 nature, then he is very sure to make a correct judgment with 

 reference to the quality or absence of quality on the part of a 

 dairy sire that may have a paper pedigree in both cases. 



I am not here today, nor at any other time or place, to speak 

 in favor of the scrub sire or of the grade sire. I do, however, 

 with all the force that I can command, both in speaking and 

 wTiting, favor only that sire which has that quality which has 

 been so strongly transmitted that it shows itself upon his very 

 body. When I use the word quality, I wish to convey the 

 thought that the dairy animal wdiich possesses it has those func- 

 tions by which digestion, assimilation and milk secretion are so 

 strongly developed in him that he has the power to transmit 

 those three qualities to his offspring, and by so doing improve 

 the dairy qualities of the herd that he may stand at the head of. 

 I have not for thirty-five years studied this matter with such 

 rare facilities as I have had, without understanding that there 

 is a wide difference between the record of a man who makes 

 the paper pedigree, and the record of nature who never makes 

 a miss. My duties have taken me over a wide range of states. 

 I have had great opportunities in meeting with breeders of dairy 

 cattle and visiting dairy herds, and from this wide observation 

 and field of experience, I say without any mental reservation that 

 there is many a sire that is rated as a full blood, that is backed 

 by a paper pedigree, that is an absolute curse to a dairyman. 

 In my early years I had some experience with those full-blooded 

 registered scrubs. I think that I have made this matter plain. 

 Too many people have confidence in a full-blood alone. The 

 practical dairyman should learn as quickly as possible, to discern 

 between the full-bloods which have quality in them and those 

 full-bloods which lack quality to that extent that they are simbly 

 full-blooded scrubs. 



