The Value of Pedigree. 
4i 
of our friends in the Colonies, to obtain our very best blood. 
Acceptable as, at the time, was this rise in values — I partici- 
pated in it myself, selling a yearling heifer for 2,000 guineas 
(I say nothing of having afterwards to sell that heifer’s family 
on account of unhealthiness, and the pang it cost me) — I yet 
venture to think it did more harm than good, as people pur- 
chased for blood, and blood alone, and that blood more on paper 
than in the good-shaped robust animal. 
Let us next consider milking properties. It has often been 
stated that pure-bred Shorthorns are deficient in milking 
qualities, and that there is some ground for this contention 
I admit, though I cannot allow that this failure of milking 
properties was inherent in the breed, having been brought 
about more by the condition the animals themselves were kept 
in. Heifers were made too fat, this state continuing, perhaps, 
for several generations. That pure-bred stock are invariably 
deficient in milking properties cannot be the case, for do we not 
see in the numerous dairy herds some of the best and most 
prolific milkers, not only got by pure-bred bulls themselves, but 
even by several successive crosses of pure bulls ? That indifferent 
milkers will be found in pure-bred herds, as well as in herds 
not so well bred, is sure to be the case — the sooner they are 
weeded out the better, — but careful attention to good milking 
strains and families, and breeding from such on both sides, will 
make the number of the defective animals exceedingly small. 
At how many of our Shows — the Dairy Show held in the month 
of October at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, for instance — 
do we see prizes given for the best milking Shorthorn “ not eli- 
gible for entry in the Herd Book,” and again for the best milker 
that is eligible ? Although the former may show larger udders 
and may give perhaps rather more milk, yet the latter will be 
very little inferior to them. Furthermore, if we came to 
examine into the breeding of the former we should probably 
find that there were many crosses of the blood of pure-bred bulls 
in its veins, not only on the sire’s, but on the dam’s side as well. 
It is simply a case in which much care has been taken for the last 
several generations to breed on both sides from milking families, 
and the eligibility for the Herd Book, although perhaps there, has 
been ignored. 
Upon this subject of milking properties. Lord Suffolk said, 
in the course of the discussion, that his experience led him to 
the conclusion that by too close in-breeding much of the milk- 
yielding capacity was sacrificed. Alluding to a well-known herd, 
he said he did not believe that the highly-bred Duchesses which 
it contained would give a pailful of milk in a week, and it was 
