Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1905-01-27


The Farmer and Breeder: ] regard
the public testings of dairy COWS thal
have occurred at the Columbian eX-
position, Chicago, 1893, the Paf-An1er-
lear exposition, Buffalo, 1901, and the
Louisiana Purchase exposition, 81.
Louis, 1904, as the best educators upon
dairy matters and the subject OF inn
proving the dairy COW by breeding her
to a higher standard that have ever
occurred.
Improved machinery improves every
industry. The business of dairylng q
had it's liberal share CT ham IN
vention and improvement, but the
dairy cow, which is h fundamental
machine for the conversion OF forage
into dairy products, has been less Inn
proved, at the average, than any other
department. The dairyman buys his
milk pals. separators, fat gauges,
churns, bottles and every appliance
that he needs, and rivalry in manufac-
ture enables him TO secure the most
up TO date advantages. He generally
buys his cows, and finds that raising
them himself implies q serious inter-
ference with his main calling. He can
rarely afford to purchase, for mere
utility purposes, thoroughbred cows
of the highest dairy quality. Their
value for breeding purposes is higher
than their mere dairy value. He can
not afford to use a cow of inferior dairy
quality at any price. To get the SUI
pericr dairy GOV at her dairy value he
therefore resorts to the grades, and
cows of mixed and heterogeneous
breeding, usually selected on appear
ances.
Sometimes he uses a thoroughbred
bull and raises the heifers from his
best mixers. Not all thoroughbred
bulls are genuine improvers. Perhaps
N in twenty of those offered to him
is really suited to his needs. IL he has
the real instincts of a breeder, he viii
a the greatest care TO make sure
that the bull is of very superior par
entage and ancestry, besides being a
shapely and highly vigorous animal.
Even then he will meet many disap-
pointments in his first grading cross.
No bull will nick well with every diff
ferent strain of blood, ven in his own
breed. A pr~omiscuously constituted
dairy herd of no breed at all, though
uniformly good, presents in each COW
separate and divergent characteristics
of blood and temperament TO be har-
monized with those of the n bull 10
which all are to be bred. If he be a
really superior bull, he will do splen-
didly with some of these cows and fair
ly' well with many others, but no mat
ter how good he is, a good number of
his daughters will be inferior to their
mothers in dairy capacity. And the
puzzle of it will be this: that, of the
best of his daughters, not all, and per-
haps but few, will be from the great
est cows in the promiscuous herd. II
the same bull is kept three or -four
years, it will be discovered. as full sis
ters among his daughters come into
- n YInt fIlKAE . =, 49, aI-nJ 4A~ol.-...
toward uniformity of dairy value
among these full sisters. If an older
heifer proves remarkable, the younger
full sisters will be apt to be at least
superior. III The older heifer is in
ferior, with no special cause apparent,
the younger full sisters seldom prove
much better. / do not state this as an
absolute rule, but a broad enough field
of observation will show 1t to be. as
/ nave claimed. "a marked tendency"
The fact hat the greatest dairy cows
in the original promiscuous herd do not
always have better daughters tina
from some OF their mates that
are not their equals in capacity Ices
prove that h individual dairy
capacity of q breeding SOW is OF no
consequence. If, instead of keeping the
first thoroughbred bull for three or
four years, a new bull had been intro
duced each year, and there We're no
full sisters among the calves of the
herd, only half sisters from the same
mother, 1t would be found that the
tendency toward uniform dairy capa-
city among the daughters of each COW
would be much broken up. Cows that
had given superior daughters by the
first bull would be less successful by
the second or third bull and vice versa.
Every male and female that are cou-
pied have affinitive poles of attraction.
positive and negative, acting upon
each other, by Which separate traits
and forces from Zach parent are drawn
forward into the offspring, while others
remain dormant for want of like afini-
tive attraction. The COW that had the
greatest individual dairy capacity
might not transmit to her daughter
all of the characteristic forces which
governs that function in herself when
populated with a given bull, simply be-
cause the character OF that bull did not
supply the specific affinitive action for
drawing her characteristic dairy forces
forward; hence that part of the make
up of the calf skipped her impress and
took it's corresponding forces and con-
character from some other
part or parts of It's ancestry upon
which afif1itive attraction did occur.
This is all right il the particular forces
brought into action are as good or bet
ter than those skipped, and this is why
the bull should come of uniformly
great ancestors. Couple the same COW
with another bull and in him she may
find the precise affinitve attraction to
her own dairy character into
daughter. This does not prove that
the second bull is. in general, any bet
ter han the first. 1t only shows that