48 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



cheese product with a wider margin of profit to the producer, ana 

 still reduce the existing number of milch cows in the country ai 

 least 40 per cent. 



But I fear too many of us fail to notice the dollar in the 

 distance in our eagerness to procure the penny that drops at our 

 feet, and to many, the sum of one hundred dollars or more ex- 

 pended in a good sire seems an extravagant waste, but I will say 

 as I have intimated before, that the approved pure bred sire has 

 been the salvation of all live stock improvement, and though 1 

 would sound the warning note against the pedigreed scrub, yex 

 as a means of raising the standard of performance of the dairy 

 cow, I firmly believe it highly essential for our dairymen to keep 

 constantly at the head of their herds, carefully selected, pedigreed 

 sires of some of the distinct dairy breeds. Animals selected 

 from a long line of producing ancestry, where dairy functions and 

 milk producing ability have become fixed characteristics. By 

 the use of the dairy sire and the selection of the heifer calves from 

 the best producing dams, a marked increase in dairy capacity 

 will be in evidence as the result of the first cross. The second, 

 third and subsequent crosses tend to intensify the qualities we 

 seek, strengthens the blood lines for dairy utility., and though 

 failures may creep in at times through atavism and reversion, 

 the general tendency will be to lead us gradually up to a higher 

 standard of performance; a standard up and away from the 

 cow of ordinary ability with which we started, and so the ques- 

 tion, will we neglect this great proposition of breeding, or will 

 we learn to know that " like begets like," and that a higher 

 standard of excellence means to us increased profits and less toil ? 



I believe that size accompanied by a certain degree of 

 refinement is a desirable characteristic of the dairy animal and 

 also a desirable characteristic of certain families of the different 

 breeds, not because of any additional hardiness in connection with 

 it but because of the increased capacity of the animal. And 

 again I can conceive of nothing more disastrous than a practice 

 which would tend to undermine the constitutional vigor and 

 stamina of the dairy cow, hence in the matter of feeding, select- 



