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American Agriculturist, April 21,1923 
Pure Bred vs. Good Bulls 
Emphasis Should Be Placed On Quality, Not Name 
I N nearly all advice 
on breeding up a herd 
of dairy cows great emphasis is placed 
on the purchase of pure-bred bulls. In 
my opinion, this is a mistake. I do not 
mean to say that the pure-bred bull is 
not desirable, but the emphasis should 
be placed on the “bull,” not on the 
“purg bred.” 
In all the more advanced dairy sec¬ 
tions, the cattle are pretty well graded 
up to the desired breed. In New York 
market milk sections this is mostly 
Holstein. One sees probably three 
grade Holsteins to one of all others. 
The type has been 
pretty largely 
fixed by now. A 
point which is 
not usually un- 
derstood by 
farmers is t h a t 
very often high- 
grades are in all 
respects, except 
in eligibility to 
registry, the 
same as pure 
breds. 
According to 
Mendel’s law, we 
can get pure-bred 
offspring from 
crossed ancestry. 
If we cross black 
guinea pigs with 
white‘‘ones, all of 
the offspring are 
black. These 
black crosses are, 
however, carriers 
of the white 
characteristics in 
a latent form. 
When we breed 
these black hy¬ 
brids, we get off¬ 
spring in the pro- 
portion of one 
white to three 
black. By fur¬ 
ther breeding we 
find that one of 
these black 
guinea pigs out 
of three is pure- 
b r e d black, and 
will breed true 
with other blacks. 
Two out of the 
three black off¬ 
spring of the sec¬ 
ond breeding are 
hybrids, like 
their parents, 
and the white one 
is a pure -bred 
white. It will 
breed true with other whites. In cat¬ 
tle, this is not so simple as in this case 
of guinea pigs, but every farmer has 
observed that after several crossings 
with pure-bred sires we have cattle 
which can hardly be told from pure 
breds and which will breed true. These 
are for all practical purposes (except 
registry) pure bred. 
When it is necessary to change over 
the cattle of a section from a beef type 
to a dairy type, or when they are badly 
mixed .... scrubs, as they are called, 
pure breds are very valuable. They have 
only one line of blood. Their offspring- 
are much more likely to resemble them 
than they are the dam, which has 
perhaps a dozen strains in her. One 
changes his mongrels or his beef herd 
into a dairy-type herd. When he has 
accomplished this, he has nearly al¬ 
ways bred in superior milking qualities. 
Type, then Production 
A fter he has a dairy-type herd, the 
. next thing to be considered is the pos- 
.sibility of continuing the improvement 
in milking qualities. The average pure 
bred is better than the average scrub or 
.beef cow, but she is not necessarily bet¬ 
ter than the average grade. A good 
^many pure bred men will deny this, but 
observation will confirm it. The reason 
is very simple. A grade cow has, aside 
from her meat value, only one reason 
for living. She produces milk. If she 
does not produce enough, she very soon 
gets the razz. The pure bred has two 
reasons for living. She can confer the 
privilege of registry on her offspring. 
The natural result is that most any 
pure bred is kept. ^ This 
results in a lowered 
standard for milk production, and the 
poor pure breds and their poor offspring 
lower the average of all. 
Many farmers believe that pure breds 
are less strong constitutionally than 
grades. If so, this is for the same 
reason—^the survival of the unfit with 
the fit. 
The practical application is as fol¬ 
lows: The dairyman with grades cares 
only for two things, milk production 
and health of his herd. Looks also 
enter in, but they are not at all a de¬ 
ciding factor. If 
he can get higher 
milk production 
by using a pure- 
bred sire, he 
wants to do it. 
If not, he can see 
no reason at all 
for spending the 
extra money. 
The question 
resolves itself, 
then, into this: 
Can one get as 
good offspi'ing 
from the grade 
bulls available as 
from the pure 
breds available. 
This again is en¬ 
tirely a matter of 
finance. In the 
pure-bred game, 
the bull calf of a 
very large pro¬ 
ducer is worth 
far more than a 
heifer calf from 
the same animal. 
In general, the 
best class of bulls 
are pretty high. 
Then there is a 
class below these 
which is not so 
high, but wHAch 
are still very 
good. The rest, 
which may still 
cost a fairly high 
price, are not as 
good as the best 
grade bulls. 
Grades have very 
little money val¬ 
ue, hence one can 
take his pick for 
a song. 
It seems to me 
that the value of 
the best grade 
bulls as sire for 
the herd has been 
overlooked. I have had it brought to 
my attention rather forcibly. A neigh¬ 
bor had the best herd in the two cow¬ 
testing stations of the county. All his 
cattle were grades. I was visiting him 
one day and got to talking the matter 
of pure-bred sires over with him. I was 
surprised to find that out of his twelve 
cows seven were sired by grade bulls, 
and these seven were the best, that is, 
all seven beat the other five, which were 
sired by pure breds. Three of these 
seven were among the best ten cows 
in the entire cow-testing association. 
He said that the grades had more 
stamina, the i-eason in my opinion for 
this showing, was that he was able to get 
the very pick of bull calves for perhaps 
ten dollars when he bought a grade to 
raise. When he bought a pure bred for 
a twelve-cow dairy, he could not afford 
to pay perhaps $100 for a calf. That 
would make too much overhead. The 
result was that the grade he would buy 
would have the advantage. 
My opinion is that the pure bred is 
superior to the grade if the sire and 
dam are superior or even equal to those 
of the grade. On the other hand, un¬ 
less the pure bred is superior I should 
prefer the grade. 
Another very interesting illustration 
of what a poor pure-bred sire can do to 
a herd is the experience of the South 
Dakota Experiment Station in grading 
up beef cattle. They took several grade 
Herefords and cared for them with 
their dairy cattle, and | bred them to 
pure-bred Holstein bulls. One of these 
will serve as an illustration. 
{Continued on page 370) 
By A. H. De GRAFF 
Is a Pure Bred Always Good ? 
A LOT of dairymen will disagree 
with Mr. pe Graff’s article on this 
page about the value' of a pure-bred 
bull. A lot more will think that he has 
hit the nail exactly on the head. There¬ 
fore this is the kind of an article we 
like to publish, for it causes thought 
and brings out both sides of an argu¬ 
ment, which results in conclusions 
founded on all the facts. 
Personally, we think that Mr. De 
Graff is i-ight in saying that the em¬ 
phasis should be pL^ed on the “bull” 
and not on the “pure bred,” but, we 
believe that there is a much better 
chance of getting a good bull from 
pure-bred stock than there is from 
grades. The best proof of this is that 
the greatest milk and butterfat records 
have all come from cows sired by pure¬ 
bred bulls. 
We emphatically disagree with Mr.. 
De Graft’ in his statement that a grade 
cow that does not produce enoughi, 
“very soon gets the razz,” while the 
pure bred is always kept on for breed¬ 
ing purposes. When we think of the 
literaly millions of poor-grade cows, 
some of which can be found in nearly 
every dairy in the land, cows that never 
have paid and never will pay, yet are 
still carried year after year, we fail 
to see where the “razz” on grade cows 
comes in. On the other hand, in the 
great majority of pure-bred dairies, the 
breeders are particularly interested in 
improving production, and knowing 
what their production is by accurate 
records there is a constant tendency to 
weed out the poor ones. 
Don’t miss this important discussion, 
and whether you agree or disagree, let 
us have your views in a short letter.— 
The Editor. 
363 
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