ioo4 The Danish System of Cattle Breeding, [march 



not only by the grant of £8 from the State, but also by the 

 money prizes awarded for the bulls at the shows. 



Milk-Control Associations. — The Associations of Cattle 

 Breeders carried out their programme satisfactorily, except so 

 far as keeping accounts of the feeding and production of the 

 individual cows. When in the beginning of the nineties 

 their account-keeping was increased by a demand for informa- 

 tion as to the percentage of fat in the milk, it was found 

 quite impossible for individual members to do this work, 

 although it was generally admitted to be very important. It 

 was particularly necessary to have the richness of the milk 

 tested, as no outward sign gives any indication of this point. 



This led to the formation of the Control Unions, the first 

 of which was formed in 1895. The object of these Unions 

 is to strike a balance-sheet for each individual cow, for 

 guidance in feeding, for weeding-out cows that do not pay, 

 and for help in selecting those cows from which to breed. 

 The object is attained by the farmers within a limited district 

 jointly appointing a young man as "Control Assistant," 

 who once every fourteen or twenty days visits each member, 

 measures the quantity of one day's milk yielded by each of 

 his cows, estimates the. percentage of fat by means of the 

 Gerber apparatus, and weighs the food given daily to each 

 cow and keeps account of all this. He has, further, to keep 

 a list showing when the cows were served, when they have 

 calved, the sex of the calves, and what has become of them. 

 All this is for the purpose of drawing up a family herd-book 

 at each farm. 



These Control Unions have found great favour with Danish 

 farmers. There are at present 479 Unions, comprising 10,925 

 farmers with, together, 187,345 cows, or more than 17 per 

 cent, of the total number of cows in the kingdom. The work 

 of the Unions is carried on by more than 500 assistants ; the 

 State gives its support by grants up to ,£14 per Union, but 

 not more than a total of ,-£6,670 in any one year. The sub- 

 scription of the members is one to two shillings per cow 

 per annum. 



These Unions are undoubtedly very useful. It is only 

 through the work of these Unions that it is possible to obtain 

 the information about the yield of the individual animals by 



