Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-08
Status of the Cow.
From the Prairie Farmer


Pedigree, more than any other one
Individual merit comes in TO qualify the
status-to raise or lower it. 4 COW may
be above or below the average of her
breed, If above, she may have the
power, in some degree, TO transmit this
excellence. Hence it is that by selection
corn takes fertilizing elements from the
Gil 30 the value of 10 cents and sells IN
he open market for so cents, the remain
ng 10 cents represents the labor applied
to the product, and the greater the cost
of the labor the higher the price demand
ed for the article, and II the price de-
manded is not obtained the farmer will
omit such crop from his list the next
season, as he cannot afford TO sell below
the cost. How much of this is profit is
not easily answered. Some farmers are
satisfied to receive out of the gross sum
and breeding from the best comes i'm
provement. If we get excellence in both
the sire and dam, Improvement is almost
certain TO follow in the offspring Intel
lgent breeders take advantage of this
fact to secure an improved type, and to it
are we indebted for the superiority of all
the breeds in their particular line of de-
velopment-milk or beef.
It is q mistaken idea that it will pay 80
start with inferior animals and breed up.
If successful, the progress would be too
SLOW to make it pay, so long as advantage
may be taken of improvement already
secured. Common sense dictates the
selection of the best possible available
type. If the beginning is with inferior
animals, the bleeding may be down in
stead of up. "Like begets like" ard
bad qualities are transmissible as we'll as
good ones. This is most important
fact to be observed in selecting and
breeding, and many make failures by not
paying sufficient attention to it. From
this comes the chief danger of inbred
ing. Both sides are likely to have the
same bad as we'll as the same good quail
ties, and bad qualities are transmitted
and intensified, as we'll as good ones.
But if all the points are right, then in
breeding strengthens them and goes to
insure their transmission.
Yet failure often follows, when two
superior individual types are occupied.
The fact that their progenitors, in the
beginning, were inferior, causes tenden-
cy to strike back to the original type.
Hence, even the most improved sire and
dam may occasionally produce offspring
below instead of above, their own status.
Much depends On the length of time the
breed has been in developing, and the
care and skill exercised in selecting and
breeding. If of recent origin, atavism
OF striking back, will be much more fire.
quen5, and render breeding more uncer-
tain in it's results. But long-establish-
ed breed, like the Devons, with almost
absolute certainty produces an average
type. Hence, the Importance of select
ing sire and dam, not only with good
pedigree, but with long one of excel
lence. With such breeding is much more
certain and satisfactory, and in breeding
up herd by introducing improved blood
of well-established excellence, improve
ment is both much more certain and
much more rapid. "Blood tells" Is can
not be too good.
We often hear the remark made, that if
our common stock were treated the same
as the blooded, the result would be the
same. This is true only in limited
sense. By better care and keep, and by
careful selection in breeding, undoubted-
ly improvement would follow. But it
would take great many years-more
than any one mans lifetime-5o start with
nothing but our native stock, and breed
up 80 the status of any of our already
established breeds of improved stock. If
one wishes to try his hand at producing
an improved type, let him select the best
he can from our established breed SIS a
foundation. Let him come as near his
ideal as ne may in selecting, and then 1t
will require twenty 30 thirty years to fix
the type with any certainty of its regu-
lar transmission.