Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-10-04
Milk and Flesh.

There is a notion prevalent among
many of those who, having escaped or
freed themselves from the trammels of
breeding for pedigree, and turned their
attention to the personal properties of
the ANIMAL that it is impossible to per-
manently combine milk and flesh. They
admit that occasionally you will find a
grazier's COW of the first class filliug the
dairyman's pail, or prime dairy COW
becoming the dam of prime steers; but
they say, with much truth, that great
production of milk, as rule, is found
in cOnnectiog with a narrow, wedg like
fore end, high and thin chine. and light
thighs; and that as you increase the
width OF the chest and the development
OF flesh in the crops and rounds, you
lose milk. They have in their favor
the experience of every one who is
judge of a dairy COW. and against
such a weight of incontestible
evidence it is difficult to reply; nor
do we attempt to dispute their position,
SO far. The rule must be granted but
the art OF breeding is TO win from nature
new rules out Of EXCEPTIONS and this is
to be done by working upon the princi-
pie Of selection. We have seen in the
same COW, in many instances, such a
cow producing her like; and if this oc-
ours in exceptional cases, which are not
rare, we may surely hope that by care
ful exercise of mans judgment it may
be made to occur still oftener, and to be-
come eventually (under continued care
ful breeding) as powerful as that law
which separates dairy and grazing cattle
into two classes In this respect, we
fear we must own, the movement of
short-horn breeders has been retrograd-
ing within the last fifty years. We
have lost much of what early breeders
gained. Suppose we try to recover it.
Ii so, we must go back to their practice
relentlessly weed out alike all bad milk
ers, all narrow-chested brutes. and all
bad thrivers, and aim to make each sue
ceeding generation better than the last.
1t is worth while to inquire why mixers
are usually wedgy and shelly, and why
broad built, wealthy COWS are usually
no mixers; and is there any necessary
connection between the wedge form and
milk, the parallelogram and inability to
milk? The true answer, we believe,
must remind us that where the milking
tendencies have been encouraged, milk
alone not beef, having been the object
of the breeder, the frame to carry beef
having been utterly neglected; moreover,
excessive milking through several gen
erations, draining the animals system,
may impair the vital organs and cause
the frame to fit itself to their reduced
size. On the other hand, where beef
has been the main desideratum, all the
breeder skill has been concentrated in
an effort to produce it, and milk, treat
ed as of secondary consideration, or of
no consideration at all, has decreased
and almost disappeared The early
short-horn breeders made the strongest
effort Of which we are aware in the his
tory of stock breeding in any country
to produce combined milk and beef
growing animal, and they attained to
measure of success which we in these
days, if we were sufficiently skillful and
sufficiently careful, building upon their
work. might even surpass.-BelTs Mes
senger (Eng)