44 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



from her ancestors. It can not be developed by feeding or 

 care if it is not inherited. 



Value of a Good Purebred Sire. 



In grading up a good herd of dairy cows the sire is the 

 most important factor. All the improvement that can be 

 made must come from the sire. He must be backed by high 

 producing ancestors and must possess the ability to transmit 

 this qualification to his offspring. The importance of this 

 fact is too often overlooked. It is often the case that a man 

 thinks he cannot afford to pay the difference between the 

 cost of a good purebred sire and a grade with the result 

 that in many cases grade sires are used instead of purebred 

 sires. What is a good sire worth? What can we afford to 

 pay for one whose offspring will be the equal of the cows 

 in group one even if he is only used in a small herd? Let 

 us suppose that a man has a herd of ten cows and that he 

 will use the same sire for two years. Assuming that his 

 cows will all be fresh each year and that oner-half of his 

 calves will be heifers he will have ten heifer calves as the 

 offspring of one sire. If these daughters are the equal of 

 the cows in group one they will return $2,000.00 above feed 

 cost in one year and in five years they will return $10,- 

 000.00. Using the same line of reasoning for the cows in 

 group five we will have $300.00 above feed cost for ten 

 cows in one year and $1,500.i00 for five years. There is a 

 difference in the returns above feed cost of $8,500.00 be- 

 tween the daughters of these two types of sires during the 

 lifetime of the daughter. 



The writer has been grading up his herd for eighteen 

 years. Beginning with a herd that averaged 5,054 pounds 

 of milk and 190 pounds of butter fat in eight years' time 

 this average production was increased to over 9,000 pounds 

 of milk and 320 pounds of butter fat. This increase, how- 

 ever, was not made alone by breeding but by better feeding 

 and care as well. For eighteen years a purebred sire has 

 been used in the herd and a record of the milk and butter- 

 fat production of each cow has been kept and the lowest 

 producers in the herd were sold as fast as better cows were 



