THE GRADE GUERNSEY’S PERFORMANCE. 
A Registry for Grades. 
We have always tried to appear as champion of the 
grade cow. The purebred registered animal gets most 
of the glory that hangs around the breed, but it’s the 
grade that goes ahead and does the work upon which 
that glory must permanently rest. That is true, and 
very few will attempt to deny it. Some pure-blood cow 
will stuff and strain under the most favorable condi¬ 
tions, and in the course of a year deliver 
a small ocean of milk, or perhaps a 
roomful of butter, and her fame is 
heralded far and wide. As a matter of 
fact her performance has very little 
practical value. Not one man in a thou¬ 
sand could ever afford to play with a 
cow in this way, and the cow isn't good 
for much as a rule when she gets done. 
Of course, some of them “come back’’ 
and repeat the performance, or some¬ 
where near it, but as a rule these prize 
animals milk themselves nearly out in 
the test, and are expected to live as 
retired specimens ever after. Some race 
horse might trot a mile in two minutes 
under most favorable conditions of track 
and weather and harness. Suppose you 
woke up in the night to find the baby 
clown with diphtheria. The doctor is 
three miles away, over a muddy road, 
and there is no auto within io miles. 
From choice which would you take to 
reach the doctor, the two-minute race 
horse or the son or grandson of that 
animal out of some tough and hardy 
mare raised among your hills? It is a 
ten to one chance that you would take 
the latter under the conditions of road 
which are to be found between your 
farm and the doctor’s. This is a fair 
illustration of the practical value of the 
pure blood as compared with a good 
grade. The latter will ever be the busi¬ 
ness farm animal. It will carry the 
strength and vigor of practical farm 
work along with the ability to produce 
speed or power, or milk or meat which 
comes from the pure blood ancestor. 
1 he grade cow is the business cow, and 
ever will be. She is the connecting link 
between the tough and hardy old scrub 
and the finer built and performing pure¬ 
bred animal. In fact, a breed is known 
"y its grades rather than by its pure¬ 
bred specimens. It has seemed to us 
very strange that breeders of pure-blood 
animals in the past have not seen this 
point. We have many times applied to 
breeders of pure-blood animals, asking 
'hem to get for us what we thought was 
the most effective live stock picture. What we wanted 
was a good specimen of a purebred bull. Grouped 
vith him we would have two or three ordinary native 
"s ail d their heifers—daughters of this purebred 
"lb \\ e can think of no better way to show to ad¬ 
jutage the value of pure blood than the size and 
appearance of such heifers. Yet somehow we have 
IK ' er ' )een able to interest a breeder in this form of 
a I""re. We have tried to interest fair managers 
m Bering good prizes for just such groups, the pure- 
1,1 C( 1 kull and his daughters out of native cows, so as 
to show at a glance the truth of the saying that such 
heifers would be obliged to “look like father’s folks.’’ 
But somehow it has been impossible to interest 
breeders or fair managers in what would seem to 
the most practical development of dairy breeding. 
The Guernsey Cattle Club, however, seems to 
started something along this line. At the next annual 
meeting the Guernsey breeders will discuss a proposi¬ 
tion to start a plan for testing grade Guernseys. This 
Association already has a register for testing first- 
class Guernseys of pure blood. It is now suggested 
that the records of grade Guernseys accurately tested 
calf at ten and a half months after the 
t of her record. The twenty-four grade 
in the Wisconsin cow competition aver- 
pounds of milk, and 475 pounds of butter 
showed an average percentage of 4.72 fat. Many 
cows have done nearly as well, and as a result 
there is a phenomenal demand for grade Guernseys, which 
may lead to au injury, as anything remotely resembling 
a Guernsey commands a very high price. 
It seems to us that this is one of the best things 
yet proposed by cattle breeders. The grade cow is 
clearly the business dairy cow, and al¬ 
ways will be. and we can think of no 
better way of proving the value of the 
purebred bull when used in the ordi¬ 
nary dairy herd than to prove the record 
of just such cows as would be produced 
by this mating. We believe that most 
Guernsey breeders will see the point in 
this, and we shall be greatly surprised 
if the proposition is not carried through. 
The other proposition of admitting high- 
grade cows of superior record into the 
registry of purebred animals does not 
seem to us equally sound. We doubt if 
this proposition would pay. The value 
of a purebred animal does not consist 
alone in the high record of that particu¬ 
lar individual, but also in the fact that 
for a number of known generations 
equally good records have been made. 
A grade cow of unknown parentage on 
the mother’s side may carry in her 
veins the blood of the poorest kind of a 
scrub, and no one could tell what would 
iiappen as the result of this blood in 
future breeding. The proposition, how¬ 
ever, to test the grades and put them on 
record is a good one, and we hope it 
will be carried out. It must be admit¬ 
ted, however, that many of the promi¬ 
nent Guernsey breeders oppose the plan. 
^ e shall give some of their arguments 
in their own words. The chief objec¬ 
tion is that in some way this testing 
would lead, in the future, to a demand 
for registering these grade Guernseys 
the same as pure bloods. 
Ss* 
Hp|f 
: 
jm. i 
* 
‘ - 
AN OLD-TIME DAIRY COMBINATION. Fig. 231. 
could be used as an appendix to this register. Of 
course, no grade would be eligible until it could be 
proved that the animal was sired by a registered 
Guernsey bull. The conditions for testing would be 
the same as those used for the regular advanced regis¬ 
ter. Mr. Robert Scoville. in discussing this matter, 
gives the following record of work done by Guernsey 
grades: 
The largest record made by a grade is that of “Jerry,” 
who was shown at the National Dairy Show, and has a 
record of 15.744 pounds of milk and 729.S7 pounds of 
fat. This is a truly remarkable record, and at Wisconsin 
market prices for feed, and creamery prices for butter 
fat, she showed a prolit of $130.35, and, moreover, gave 
THE BUSINESS SIDE OF IT. 
■ On page 593 you have a discussion 
of “The Conservative Father and His 
Progressive Son.” I believe that in 
this case the father is more progres¬ 
sive than the son, and that his idea of 
mixed farming is actually the progres¬ 
sive idea. During his college course 
the son has evidently not had any in¬ 
struction in the law of diminishing re¬ 
turns. 
It is very easy to make farming so 
intensive as not to pay. The largest crop yields 
rarely pay as well as good crops, provided they are 
secured on the same soil. The last place in the 
world to start intensive farming is on poor, cheap 
land. It may not be wise for this young man to 
stay on his father’s farm if the farm is too poor, 
but if the farm is so poor that he cannot make a 
living on the entire farm he will certainly be very 
foolish to try to make a living on 40 acres of it. 
Probably no farm product or, for that matter, any 
product is produced on a closer margin of profit titan 
dairy products, particularly butter. For this reason 
dairy farming rarely pavs well except when combined 
Vol. LXXII, No. 4204. 
NEW YORK MAY 24, 1913 
WEEKLY Si.00 PER YEAR 
