FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 21 



chickens or quail. And there is nothing mysterious about 

 a pure-bred animal. It just simply means that for years 

 and years they have been trained to do a particular thing 

 and their ancestors have been recorded. 



There is a great difference, however, between pure- 

 bred animals. Unfortunately, we havent made the close 

 selection in the breeding of pure-breds that we should. We 

 have incapable pure-breds. We have pure-bred bulls that 

 breed down instead of up, and we have low-producing pure- 

 bred cows. Now the cows are not all to blame; the men 

 may be to blame the way they feed and take care of them. 

 Nevertheless, the breeders of pure-bred cattle to the pres- 

 ent time have not eliminated all of the low-producing ani- 

 mals. 



Why, you can pick up any farmer's record, almost, in 

 our cow testing association and you can find where pure- 

 bred bulls have decreased the production to one hundred, 

 one hundred and fifty and sometimes two hundred pounds 

 of fat a year. On the other hand you can turn over the 

 pages and find records of the cow herds that have been 

 increased from one hundred and fifty or two hundred 

 pounds average per cow per herd, where the bull has 

 brought up the average to three, four, and in some cases 

 close to five hundred pounds of fat. 



It takes a great deal of skill to get a herd that will 

 average even four hundred pounds. We read of the rec- 

 ords of cows like some of the champions that produce one 

 thousand pounds of fat a year, and some of them even fif- 

 teen hundred pounds a year, and in certain cases have pro- 

 duced 36,000 pounds or better, of milk. Think of it! Bet- 

 ter than eighteen tons in a year. And we say, "Well, I 

 think we ought to have all our cows do that well." We 

 haven't any of us yet fully appreciated the skill it requires 

 on the part of the farmer to breed, feed and develop a herd 

 that will average four hundred pounds of fat per cow per 

 year, and until we do appreciate that we are not going to 

 make the progress that we ought to in the breeding of our 

 dairy cattle. 



We have twenty-six millions of cows, and we could 



