WEEKLY $1.00 PER YEAR. 
You LXXII. No. 4208. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 21, 1913. 
THE ASHLAND DAIRY PLAN. 
Something More Than Talk. 
| The following story of what promises to be a strong 
feature of many future co-operative societies is fur¬ 
nished by the editor of the Lake Superior Farmer.] 
I presume that our community a year ago was not 
different from any ordinary sawmill town which was 
on the decline. Our leading industry has left us 
and in developing our cut-over lands we are con¬ 
fronted with all the difficulties of pioneering. This is 
naturally a great clover country. We have splendid 
transportation facilities, we have pure, cold water, 
a splendid market and high prices for dairy products. 
A year ago the Commercial Club of this city first 
gave consideration to the possibilities of Ashland as 
a dairy center, and 
adopted as its slogan, 
"I’ut Ashland on the 
Dairy Map.” Our farm¬ 
ers had made no organ¬ 
ized effort to breed bet¬ 
ter dairy cattle. The 
price of hay was low 
and of no ready market. 
It was through the ef¬ 
forts of a few men that 
a campaign of educa¬ 
tion was commenced 
with the idea of waken¬ 
ing up the city men as 
well as the farmers to 
the possibilities of dairy¬ 
ing in this vicinity. Ac¬ 
cordingly by a strenu¬ 
ous campaign the an¬ 
nual meeting of the 
Wisconsin Dairymen’s 
Association was secured 
for the middle of No¬ 
vember. In order to 
arouse enthusiasm 
among the farmers and 
< ity men to the impor¬ 
tance of this event and 
to secure large attend¬ 
ance, the Commercial 
t’lub gave what is known 
as two “Forty Dinners.” 
Forty business men of 
^ s li 1 a n d invited 40 
farmers to be their 
guests at a Saturday 
noon dinner, at which 
prominent live stock 
speakers were secured ... 
, , iUl\ o. \\ 
toi addresses. The con¬ 
tention in Ashland in November was a decided suc- 
'ess .so far as attendance goes, and Ashland was 
'only committed to the programme of dairy develop¬ 
ment. 
A dairy survey was taken of the vicinity and it 
U:LS ascertained that sufficient land was cleared to 
lake care of double the amount of live stock. To 
increase the cow population, the Ashland credit plan 
dciixed by which a number of business men 
* s tiu„ of merchants, manufacturers, professional 
11 and others endorsed a fund of $10,000 to be 
mil by the two banks to certain trustees. These 
i 1 us tees acted as a loan agency, and a committee of 
endorsers received applications for loans and 
Fie purchase of cows on tliree-year terms at 
w ii pei cent interest, payable quarterly on chattel 
111,11 1 gage security. According to the terms of the 
agreen.ent with the farmer, he was to reduce his 
" each month on each cow purchased. The 
plan appealed to the local merchants and business 
men, and they readily endorsed the loan. The plan 
has not been in operation long. We have only suc¬ 
ceeded in picking up three carloads of cows up to 
the present time, but the idea has brought about 
a very close and warm relation between the farmers 
and city men. It has given each a better under¬ 
standing of the other, and has awakened the whole 
community to the possibilities of dairying. It has 
been a great stimulus to better breeding. Bull clubs 
and community breeding associations have followed 
as a matter of course, and Ashland is now ambitious 
to be known lis the “Dairy Capital of the North.” 
The cows have been turned over to the farmers at 
actual cost, plus expense of shipping. The buyers 
WYANDOTTE’S PERFECT FIRELESS BROODER 
donated their services to the purchase of the ani¬ 
mals. The University of Wisconsin has been help¬ 
ful in the matter, and through the advice of Prof. 
Humphrey three carloads have been located and 
brought to Ashland. The novelty of the Ashland 
dairy plan has been simply that it is a community 
effort to use community money in building up Ash¬ 
land s agriculture. I see no reason why the same 
plan could not be readily adopted in any small town 
like our own. 1 consider the educational value of 
the plan worth as much as anything because it is au 
accomplishment—it has been more than talk. It has 
been a united community effort really to do some¬ 
thing. BOY II. BEEBE. 
R. N.-Y.—Consider for a moment the wealth 
brought into a community, and distributed where it 
is most beneficial, by such a plan as this. The soil 
is enriched, property .values are increased, and best 
of all, a solidarity of interests is promoted. 
MENDEL’S LAW OF HEREDITY. 
An Illustration in Poultry Breeding. 
Will you tell us something about Mendel’s law? I 
have read a great deal about this subject, and seen 
various extracts, or what were supposed to be extracts 
(maybe they are tinctures) from it. The more I read, 
the less I can tell about it, and the worse I get mixed 
I want to know if it is practical, and if practical, if it 
will be of any service applied to poultry breeding, j. r. 
Mendel’s law of hybrids, called by Castle “The 
greatest single discovery ever made in the field of 
heredity.” has reference to the transmission of phys¬ 
ical characters when animals or plants of the same 
species, but differing in certain physical features, 
are bred together. It has to do particularly with 
the proportions in which opposing and mutually 
exclusive characters, 
such as rose and single 
combs in fowls, or the 
presence or absence of 
horns in cattle, appear 
in the young when ani¬ 
mals or plants possess¬ 
ing these opposed char¬ 
acters are bred together. 
The progeny of such a 
union are here termed 
hybrids, while the par¬ 
ents are considered 
purebred in so far as 
the character under con¬ 
sideration is concerned. 
Taking the fowls as 
an illustration, rose 
combs and single combs 
are called “unit charac¬ 
ters,” since they always 
exist separately and do 
not interchange when 
transmitted by “pure- 
breds.” Mendel’s law, 
then, assumes the exist¬ 
ence of such unit char¬ 
acters, and also assumes 
that when animals or 
plants possessing such 
characters as differ 
from each other, or are 
opposed to each other, 
are united in breeding 
one or these characters 
will usually show its 
“dominance” over the 
other ©y appearing iu 
the progeny, while the 
Fig. 270. less dominant one will, 
at least temporarily, re¬ 
cede from view; being called therefore a “recessive.* 
In the illustration used we will consider rose combs 
dominant, and single combs recessive, that is, when 
a rose-combed fowl is bred with a single-combed 
variety the resulting chicks will all have rose combs 
the dominant kind. But the single comb has not 
been lost in this cross; it has simply yielded tem- 
porarily to its more aggressive antagonist; it is still 
“in the blood,” however. 
Now let these cross-bred rose-combed chicks reach 
maturity and be bred together; their offspring will 
not all be rose-combed, but au average of one-fourth 
of them will display that lost single comb, while 
the other tliree-fourtlis will have the rose combs of 
their parents. These single combs, inherited, we will 
say. from their single-combed grandparent, are 
called true recessives because they are “purebred* 
and in breeding together will be transmitted pure 
Of that three-fourths of the offspring which have 
