266 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



OFFICIAL RECORDS OF PURE-BRED DAIRY 



COWS. 



By C. C. Hayden, University of Illinois. 



A new bulletin from University of Illinois Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station deals with "Official Records of Pure-Bred 

 Dairy Cows," and was prepared by C. C. Hayden. A large part 

 of the bulletin is made up of tables of records; and the remainder 

 contains interesting matter about the value of carefully kept 

 records in breeding operations, improvement of cattle by careful 

 selection and breeding etc. From the bulletin we take the fol- 

 lowing : 



Introduction. 



For more than 50 years northern Illinois has been known 

 as a dairy section. In that time great advance has been made 

 in methods and machinery for carrying on the work, but during 

 the same time little systematic effort has been put forth in the 

 improvement of dairy cattle. Though the dairy section in the 

 southern part of the state developed at a much later date, rela- 

 tively more progress has been made in the improvement of its 

 cattle. The Northwestern Dairyman's Association was organ- 

 ized in 1866 and included dairymen of both northern Illinois and 

 southern Wisconsin. Its main object was apparently the devel- 

 opment of the manufacturing and marketing of dairy products 

 rather than the improvement of the cattle. Five years later 

 (1871) Illinois had 46 cheese factories and creameries, and from 

 this time on great strides were made in butter and cheese pro- 

 duction. The Illinois Dairyman's Association was organized 

 at Elgin in 1874, since which time Elgin has been famous as a 

 dairy center. The early work of this association dealt more 

 particularly with the manufacturing and marketing side rather 

 than with the production side of dairying. In the available early 

 history of dairying in the state very little is said about the 

 quality of the cattle but much about the products. 



