FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 217 



Consequently it should be stated that none of the bulls used 

 were bought at high prices although they were all well bred from 

 the production standpoint. Young bulls of equal breeding can 

 be bought for very nominal prices. 



Not only have these first generation heifers proved to be very 

 much superior to their dams in production, and thus clearly 

 demonstrated the value of a purebred dairy sire as an investment 

 for a common or scrub herd as well as for a high grade or pure- 

 bred herd, but a study of the illustrations also brings out the 

 great improvement in constitution, capacity, mammary develop- 

 ment, straightness of top line, quality and type. This improve- 

 ment is more marked in the second generation grades. 



Digestive and Feeding Ability of Scrub and Grade Calves 



It has been found at the Missouri Agricultural Experiment 

 station that the chief difference between high producing and low 

 producing dairy cows does not lie in the coefficient of digestion or 

 in the maintenance requirements, but is due to the fact that a 

 heavy milking cow has a greater capacity than a poor cow for 

 utilizing food above her maintenance requirement. The above 

 work was conducted with purebred animals all of which had 

 been kept under similar conditions. 



In connection with the work on scrub cows already de- 

 scribed, feeding and digestion trials were conducted with calves 

 from the scrub cows and sired by a scrub bull while grade Short- 

 horn and Angus calves were used as a check lot. 



Four scrub and four grade calves were used originally, there 

 were two bulls and two heifers in each lot, but as one of the 

 grade females proved to be unhealthy it had to be dropped from 

 the experiment. They were four months old when the experi- 

 ment started. The feeding trial lasted 196 days, in which two 

 digestion trials of ten days each were made. 



All calves received the same amount of separated milk and 

 in addition each one was given what grain and alfalfa hay it 

 could consume to advantage. The grain mixture consisted of 

 three parts, cracked corn, two parts ground oats and one part 

 wheat bran. 



