FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 203 



INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT AND BREEDING 

 IN INCREASING DAIRY PRODUCTION. 



By H. H. Kildee and A. C. McCandlish, Iowa State College of 

 Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. 



Data secured in an investigation v\^hich has now^ been under 

 way for eight years at the Iowa Agricultural Experiment sta- 

 tion give direct support to the belief that a good paying dairy 

 herd can be built up from a foundation of common cows through 

 proper methods of feeding and management and through the 

 use of a good purebred dairy sire. The results of this work 

 are presented in a preliminary way in this bulletin and will be 

 given in more complete form when the investigation has been 

 carried further. 



Investigations of this kind are fundamental to the task of 

 increasing dairy production to meet increasing demands for 

 dairy products because they seek to find ways of getting more 

 milk and butterfat from the overwhelming majority of com- 

 mon cows. There are in the United States, according to gov- 

 ernment reports, more than 20,000,000 so-called dairy animals 

 whose average production is not half as much as it might be if 

 proper methods of selection, breeding, feeding and management 

 were followed by all dairy farmers. Any information that will 

 help to build up better and more productive dairy herds from 

 these animals is consequently of large value. 



The first year's work of any co-operative cow testing asso- 

 ciation clearly demonstrates that the low average production is 

 due both to poor feeding and inferior cows. However, it is hard 

 to determine the relative importance of improved feeding and 

 management compared with the influence derived from the intro- 

 duction of "dairy blood" through the use of purebred dairy 

 sires. Then, too, data from the experiment stations showing the 

 influence of these factors are very limited. 



With a herd that had been previously poorly fed. Wing 

 found that an abundant ration easily digestible and rather nitro- 



