The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-16
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Through the use of bulls of superior merit can great improvement be wrought in our dairy herds. It has a single generation can a very mark ed increase be secured through the use of bulls from high producing stock.
 The United States department of ag- riculture has recently made public
 some figures which show that daugh-
 ters from bulls that are bred right
 will excel the production of their dams. Seven cows the average pro
 duction of which was 20S,3 pounds of certain bull and the production of the offspring was increased to 2105 pounds. In another instance seven daughters of another bull produced an average of 2S1.6 pounds of butter fat while the dams produced only 2264 pounds. In a third instance the
 daughters produced 369.5 pounds
 while the dams yielded but 254 pounds
 In each of those tests the increase in production could be credited wholly to the influence of bulls able to transmit high h-producing tendencies.
 One of the greatest problems is for small dairymen to secure the service or bull able to bring improvement to his herd. A large proportion of our total supply of milk and dairy prod ucts are produced on farms where less than 10 cows are kept and there are 100000 of those farms. It is obvious that each of those millions of herd owners cannot own and keep a pure- bred dairy bull capable of increasing the average production of his herd. The amount necessary to invest in such an animal. the expense and labor or Keeping and the limited number of desirable animals make this impos- sible
 Some scheme of cooperative use or plan of distribution must be worked ont The so-called cooperative hull asso- ciation is meeting this situation splen- dldly in some localities. A co-operatiye pun association is an organizat tion of farmers the purpose of which is the joint ownership, use and exchange of pure- pred bulls. The locality interested is di- Viued into three or four blocks with a puil in each block for the service of 50 or oo cows. Every second year the bulls are rotated. Thus at very small cost a pure-bred bull is provided for every 50 or bo cows for six years or more. The initial cost usually is less than it would De were each dairyman to invest in young scrub bull Through this plan we may expect the same rate of benefit as was secured in the specific instances cited above
 The bull association plan gives oppor- tunity to try out the merit of the differ ent slres. It is we'll known that some bulls will transmit high producing ten dencies to much greater degree than Will others. As soon as the heifers from bulls owned by an association are ready TOT the dairy they can be tested out and the real meritorious bulls retained and any that are not giving satisfactory re- suits may be sent to the shambles
 A county agent in corn-belt state has induced his dairymen to establish a bull exchange whereby they list with him the bulls that they have for sale or exchange. Through his efforts trades are frequently made and it often hap pens that some dairymen are able to purchase high-class sires for the same price that the butcher would pay There is merit in this county agents plan and doubtless he will earn his salary in this work alone.
 The practical problem to be met is to secure the service of registered bulls of real merit for all dairy cows. There are communities where the bull club will prove the ideal plan. There are other communities where the work as being done by the county agent just mentioned