Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1909-11-30

have come here to-day to try and tel
you how to breed dairy cattle. would
rather leave that task for the man who
has never attempted any breeding opera
tions, because he would find it so much
easier. However, | am going to try and
tell you about a few things that | have
found out, then | want you to tell me
some of the things you have found out,
and see il we can't all end this day with
a little gain on the situation.
For seven years | followed the pro-
fession of civil engineer. Now when
an engineer builds a bridge or dam,
and it stands all right, We don't pay
much attention to it. Perhaps it was a
good and economical design. Nobody
knows. But when structure fails, then
We look into it. There is chance to
learn something.
Probably you remember few years
ago that a great cantilever bridge was
under construction across the ST. Law
renee River at Quebec. The bridge was
considerably larger than any of that
kind that had ever been built, aud the
leading engineer of the world was con.
suited in preparing the designs. Accord
ing to these plans, the principal COM
preston member was built up of long,
and relatively thin and narrow plates of
steel, riveted together. The foreman at
The bridge works who was assembling
these plates, went to the engineer there
and kicked. He said the stuff was too
timber to make the finished chord safe
Well, the engineer went over his figures
again, aud then took it up with the con-
sulting expert. Together they conclud-
ed that the figures were all right and
gave order to 60 ahead. AS you all
know the bridge fell into the river.
Now, gentlemen, it is the same way
with good deal of the theory that is
banded out on the subject of breeding.
II figures all right, but it won't work.
If perchauce ] should say anything to-
day that goes against your experience,
pick me right up on it, because the real
experience is the sort of thing we must
have.
Ny experience in breeding has been
with poultry, beginning in 1904. OF
course you all know that the laws of in
heritance are the same for all classes of
livestock, but one year with poultry is
equivalent to three with dairy cattle,
and for this reason do wish more dairy
men could breed few chickens on the
side. 1t would save whole lot of
blunders.
set out to build up flock of stand
ard bred Plymouth Rocks, aud the first
year | bought eggs for hatching from
three different men. When l got ready
to mate up my breeders the next winter,
l got an expert friend of mine to 60 over
the flock and pick out my best females.
Then together we went TO the farm of
another expert poultryman and bought
male, a cock bird that had sired some
choice pullets the year before.
Now had one pullet that almost suit
ed me, so decided to hatch her eggs by
themselves. This | reasoned should
give me several good cockerels, all full
brothers, making it easy to have the
next generation 'like peas in pod"
pullets. OF the cOckerels, one was a
good one, one passing fair, and tue
others absolutely worthless as breeders.
Well, that certainly set me 10 thinking.
Both sire and dam had been bred by
experts, and selected by another. They
were choice specimens in every way.
But they didn't ''nck" That is how
came to take up the study of breeding.
The Jersey COW is acknowledged by
all to stand in a class by herself. She is
the maximum adaptation of nature to
meet the requirements of civilization.
Whom we come to analyze this wonder
full creature, we find that she is COM
bnation of two principal factors, the
dairy temperament-that is the machine
and constitutional vigor-the power
that drives it. When we undertake to
breed this combination there are certain
factors that we can control, Others that
we can keep within certain limits, and
still others that must remain forever,
wholly matter of chance. This can
best be illustrated by studying the or
ganism at the very beginning of its life.
The perfection of the modern micro
scope has cleared up lot of the mystery
that has long obscured these facts. Liv-
ing tissue is made up of minute PARTICLES
called cells. These all multiply causing
| tissue growth in this manner. By alb
sorbing nutriment the cell leugthens out,
then contracts in the middle, and finally
divides into two cells. These in turn re-
peat the process, and thus continue.
Within each individual cell are some ex-
ceedingly minute bodies called chrome
somes. For any given species the num-
cell is constant, and In the case of the
dairy animal that number is sixteen.
Now the unborn calf begins its in
diyidual life as single cell containing
| l6 chromosomes, eight of those come
from the sire and eight from the dam.
The process is rather complicated to try
| and explain without blackboard. but
the fac | wanted to emphasize is this.
EXCEPT in the case of twins, you would
have to mate the same bull tn the same
cow over ii 900 times to be sure of get
ting two calves exactly alike, assuming
the pair TO be unrelated.
| For example take a pack of playing
cards and draw on" out. Your chance
| of getting the ace of spades is one in 52
| Now if you should throw out all the red
cards, your chances would be one in rs,
and by drawing from the spade suit
alone you could get it down to one in Is
This is parallel to what We do in breed
ing. Five or six generations of rigid
selection will practically eliminate un
desirable characters that have material
basis in the chromosomes.
Going back now to the single cell from
which develops the embryo. First thi'
grows and divides into two. Further
development and the two divide int,
four. One of the four develops into tb'
group that form the skeleton. A seconC
goes to makeup the muscular and Othe
tissues. The third forms the digestive
apparatus. But the fourth is set aside
to form the germ cells for the succeed
ing generation.
These germ cells multiply, but each l.
an exact duplicate of the original singl
germ. Their existence is well-nigh in
dependent of that OF the animal itself
and nothing that can be done to thi
nimal can materially change the char
acter OF those germ cells.
But we know that n COW may hav'
good calves and afterwards poor ones
How shall we account for thai? Par,l,
BY the variations which we mention I
before, but chiefly through tiuctuation
in constitutional vigor. This you recs
defined as the vital energy that drive
the machine. To my mind 1t is some
thing like this. You can toss bas
ball lightly against window, or you Ca
send it through with crash. The ba
;s tba ma in eitber case but the effeC