r 905-] Cattle-Breeding in Germany. 



411 



4. Herd-book Societies and Associations of Breeders. — These 

 exist in very considerable numbers in Germany, many local 

 herd-book societies existing for one breed in the same province, 

 these local associations being federated into a Provincial Union. 

 In addition to the registration of pure-bred animals, they 

 endeavour to encourage breeding by other means, such as the 

 holding of shows or exhibitions, by offering prizes, sending 

 cattle to shows outside the district, by the publication of 

 information useful to breeders, and in other ways. 



5. Dairy Control Societies and Milking Tests. — A description 

 of the methods pursued by the Danish control societies was 

 recently given in this Journal* Briefly, it may be said that 

 their object is to enable the farmer by a system of milk- 

 testing, combined with the keeping of careful records, to check 

 the yield of each cow in his herd with a view to the elimination 

 of those which appear unprofitable. Societies on the same 

 principle exist in Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, the Rhine 

 province, and elsewhere. In the former province there were in 

 all fourteen societies, and ten of these, for which particulars were 

 available, included 3,910 cows, belonging to 194 owners. In all, 

 82 of these Societies existed in Germany in 1904, the number of 

 cows coming under control being 29,351. 



Milking tests are, however, more common, and a system 

 which has been undertaken in Bavaria since 1894 by the 

 Allgauer Herd-Book Society bears some resemblance to the 

 control system, though it is only intended to test the yield 

 of the pure-bred cows in the herd-book. The cost is borne 

 by the society, who employ several officers for the purpose. 

 The milk of all the cows on the farms visited is weighed 

 and recorded once a fortnight, and an average sample taken 

 of the milk of each of the pure-bred cows. These samples 

 are sent to the experiment station at Memmingen to be 

 tested. Prizes based on the results are given, the production 

 for this purpose being reckoned from eleven days after calving 

 till the yield falls to 4J lb. The daily average production 

 per cow is calculated on the period between calving, including 

 the dry period. The average results of a thousand cows in the 

 eight years 1894- 1902 were as follows : — 



* April, 1905, p. 21. 



