ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



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of " like begetting like," but this is only half the truth. We 

 should ever add these words '' or a likeness of some ancestor." 

 Here is where we will find any amount of trouble unless we use 

 an animal that has been bred after the type that we want, from 

 performers that we can approve, for a period long enough to 

 establish an heredity that will transmit either the likeness of the 

 animal which we see before us, and if by reversion he goes to 

 an ancestor, still we are satisfied because it is like himself. 



I am speaking with much earnestness on this matter and I 

 can explain to you why I am so deeply in earnest when I say 

 that when I first began the improvement of my dairy herd I had 

 an experience of about twelve years, when struggling to estab- 

 ish a home upon the frontiers of Minnesota, I bought and used 

 four full-blooded dairy sires (so-called), every one of them a 

 failure. All that I got out of that long siege was a knowledge 

 which I am now endeavoring to impart to you, both by this 

 address and by the printed matter which I will furnish. Let it 

 be understood that I did not mix breeds. When I tried a sire 

 and found him a failure, I cleaned out all of his progeny and 

 started in with another. Lest some will think that I favor some 

 one breed, I will state that I had in those four sires a represei*- 

 tative of the Ayrhsires, a Jersey and tw^o sires from the so-called 

 milking Shorthorns. Let me add right here, that some of the 

 finest dairy blood in the world will be found among these three 

 breeds mentioned, but you must get it by selection. Please 

 remember this, and if you wish to transmit the grand dairy 

 qualities from these breeds that we have enumerated, then by 

 all means take the greatest of pains in the selection of the sire 

 from those breeds. 



We here give in a few words some underlying principles 

 in the law of the breeding of animals. First : The form of an 

 animal is always in harmony with the performance of the animal. 

 This is seen in the running dog, the running horse, the beef 

 cow, the fighting dog, etc. Secondly : There is a strong tendency 

 which amounts to almost a law, that in breeding the sire trans- 

 mits the form. This is shown so conclusively in the breeding of 

 mules. We can lay it down as a rule without an exception that 



