1921.] Dairy Cattle in Denmark. 607 



yearlings. These " Offspring Shows " are also a special Danish 

 feature. 



By these means farmers had for a number of years been 

 encouraged to preserve good bulls for sei-vice. While in 1887 

 only 371 bulls were presented at the District Shows, there were 

 in 1908 more than 1,200 at the State Show^s, and at some 

 local shows as many as 250 old bulls are shown every year.* 



The Law of 1902, by which time the milk recording societies 

 had already collected many records of the milk yield of cows, 

 offered a further grant of £750 to cattle breeding . societies, 

 " which, by showing superior offspring, have proved to be 

 particularly capable of developing good strains of dairy cattle." 

 Such breeding societies could compete for participation in this 

 grant by showing, at the Offspring Shows, their bulls and one- 

 eighth of the total number of their cows, and at least 2 bulls 

 and 24 cows. One-fourth of the number of cows must be 

 between one and two years' old, and for at least one -fourth 

 of the number of cows two years' records of the yield of milk 

 must be produced. Breeding societies have an additional claim 

 to the grant if they show animals closely related to one another 

 through sire or dam, that is, if they have formed or are on 

 the way to form " tribes " or families of dairy cattle producing 

 a high yield of butter. 



When the Law was amended in 1912 the form of this grant 

 was altered and further encouragement was offered to cattle 

 breeding societies which had many of their cows under the control 

 of the milk recording societies. A grant is offered for each bull 

 belonging to a cattle breeding society when the bull is at least 

 IJ years old and has been awarded certain prizes at shows, 

 but the amount of the grant per bull varies from £4: to £5 or 

 £6 according to whether less than half, more than half or more 

 than three -fourths, respectively, of all the cows belonging to 

 members of the cattle breeding society are being reliably 

 controlled as to their yield of milk, by quantity and quality, 

 and their consumption of fodder. 



{To he concluded.) 



* Miu-keberg, l.c, page 999. 



