1920] 



Breeding Dairy Cattle. 



651 



daughters of the other; this method is only practicable where a 

 fairly large herd is kept and the bulls may be retained with 

 safety. The mating of successive bulls from the same family 

 with the progeny of each preceding sire would illustrate more 

 distant line-breeding, and the adoption of this method is within 

 the power of the average dairy farmer. 



Pedigree and its Uses. — Pedigrees provide information on the 

 ancestry of individual animals, and are of incalculable value to 

 all breeders. It is only by a study of pedigrees that a breeder 

 can obtain the information necessary to enable him to follow a 

 system of line breeding. The description of a pedigree usually 

 given, however, is incomplete and misleading. It is customary 

 to trace the descent only through the female side, and often 

 an animal is described by a family name when it traces its 

 ancestry on the female side to some famous cow, although this 

 cow may be only one of four great-grand-dams. The dam and 

 grand-dams of the sire are just as important as the dam and 

 grand-dams of the dam. 



It is also most desirable that the statement of pedigree should 

 be supplemented by reliable information as to the dairy qualities 

 of the dams and the dairy prepotency of the sires. In this 

 respect, milk records meet a great need, and the breeder would 

 be helped materially if a uniform method of stating milk vields 

 were adopted. 



Definition and Measurement of Dairy Qualities. — Some 

 definition of the desired dairy qualities is first necessary. Five 

 may here be mentioned : — (a) large milk yield ; (b) persistency 

 of milk yield ; (c) high milk fat percentage ; (d) regular breeding 

 powers ; and (e) good constitution. 



Of these qualities, (c), (d) and (e) are possessed, often to a 

 high degree, by cows of beef breeds. They are not confined to 

 the dairy breeds, but are included here in addition to the 

 specific dairy qualities of a large and a persistent milk yield, 

 because they are essential in first-class dairy cows of any breed. 



It is next desirable to ascertain the extent to which these 

 different qualities are related. Some information on the first 

 four points has been collected through the agency of milk- 

 recording societies, and the development of this practice should 

 enable valuable data to be obtained. Milk recording, as carried 

 out in England and Wales, collects information on the quantity 

 and persistence of milk yields (a) and (b), and, where the cows 

 remain in recorded herds, on breeding powers (d). Only in rare 

 instances is information collected on fat percentage (c), and this 



