1921.] 



Dairy Cattle in Denmark. 



711 



Denmark. It first helped to eliminate the wasters, cows that 

 consumed greater money values than they yielded in milk. It 

 then largely increased the usefulness of family herdbooks and 

 official herdbooks by giving reliable information of actual pelds 

 where hitherto opinion of the performance of a cow rested on 

 outward signs. It based the judging of entire herds in the 

 biennial competitions on a firm foundation of figures, and did 

 the same for the judging at shows, coupled, of course, with a 

 consideration of the animals as to harmonious build, colour, size 

 and other qualities. It proved that high milk yielding capacity 

 is a character that can be inherited through the dam and, still 

 more important, that it can be inherited through the sire. It 

 thus gave rise to the recognition of bull families," the male 

 members of which possess the quality of improving the yields 

 of their progeny beyond that of their respective dams. The milk 

 recording societies have undoubtedly been a very great help to 

 the breeding of dairy cattle for milk production; they have, in 

 fact, gone a long way towards reducing it to something like an 

 exact science based on definite figures of vield instead of vague 

 ideas and outward appearances with no known relationship to 

 yield. This influence of the milk recording societies is shown 

 by a very material improvement in the \deld. The societies 

 have made milk production more profitable and the breeding 

 of dairy cattle more interesting. 



In a butter producing country the percentage of fat in the 

 milk is a very important factor, and the raising of the average 

 percentage has been the chief object of the milk recording 

 societies in Denmark, though they have also aimed at increasing 

 the yield of milk by quantity. When a large milk yield is 

 desired and the richness is not of so great an importance, for 

 instance, where milk is produced for sale and consumption as 

 such, the object of the societies is simpler and should therefore 

 be more easily attained : it is. in fact, a single one instead of a 

 double one. In this connection it is woiih while saying that in 

 the opinion of Mr. Morkeberg : "the capacity to yield much milk 

 and the capacity to yield rich milk are two different characters, 

 both hereditary but inherited the one independent of the other." 

 If that be so it should be considerably easier, aided by milk 

 records, to develop only one of these qualities instead of develop- 

 ing them both. 



