The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1920-01-02
ESSAY READ BEFORE CECIL
FARMERS CLUB.
Raising the standard OF the Dairy
Herd.
By NJ. c. Reeder.

So much is being written III the
agricultural papers and spoken at
live stock meetings about the yari-
GUS sides of the dairy cattle industry
that hesitate to bring this subject
before you today for discussion.
When our native cattle roamed over
unfenced lands and the mating of
animals followed natural lines, it
was simply the survival of the tittest.
Undeveloped weak males were
driven from the herd or killed out
right. Brute strength was supreme
and those which were unable to with
stand it, persisted. CHANGING for
moment at the female of the species,
we find her as today occupying most
of the time, the back of the stage.
He duty in the wild state was per-
formed when she brought forth off
spring about once year and nourish-
ed them to self-sustaining age,
or for about four months.
Anyone with knowledge of live
stock realizes it was not by such
natural methods the modern dairy
COW has been developed. A secretion
of the mammary gland, milk, has
always been the intended food fol
the young. All things needful fol
maintenance and growth of the off
spring are provided in this milk.
But man in his search for knowledge
and money has investigated the pos
sibility of milk as a food and found
that if the mammary gland, prin-
cipally of the cow, could by various
means at his command prolong the
secretion of this gland beyond the
time required for the calf, he could
benefit himself financially and man
kind economically by giving them
nearly a perfect food.
The story of the development OF
the modern dairy cow is too long and
too familiar to all of you to be told
here, but with all the facts at our
hand as the result of experience we
persist in trying some short cut OF
unwarranted method which too often
results disastrously for all concerned.
The two main plans followed in this
development are, first: selection, ano
second: breeding. BY means of the
first we can choose those animals
which more nearly measure up to
our ideal or to the scale of points as
established for that breed, but it IL
by the intelligent application of the
principles of breeding that this idea,
form may be more nearly realized in
a number of individuals and be con-
tinued for generations.
There are two great principles or
laws which underlie all breeding
operations. The first is known as
the Law of Heredity, based on the
principle that like tends to produce
like" BY reason of the working OF
this law, we can hope and expect to
maintain whatever degree of perfec-
ton we may have attained against
the tendency to revert to the print
tive type. The second law is Vari-
alton, by means of which progress in
breeding is made possible. If IL
were not for this second law counter
acting to some extent the laws OF
Heredity, it would hardly be possible
to change by breeding the form or
size or characteristics which had be-
come fixed by Heredity. But by the
interacting of these two great laws,
though opposite in their principles,
we have been enabled to develop the
ungainly primitive COW, which gave
barely enough milk to nourish her
calf to a self-supporting age, into a
thing of beauty and symmetry pro-
ducing many thousands of pounds of
milk in excess of that required by
her calf.
A discussion of the relative merits
of the several breeds is hardly in
order in this kind of paper for the
same principles apply to all breeds.
Many of us are amazed at the
prices which many pure-bred ami
mails bring at public auction. We
often dismiss the matter from our
mind by saying such animals are q
rich mans plaything, not a poor
mans necessity. l agree with you
that it would be foolish for man to
borrow money to invest in a whole
herd of such animals without a
knowledge of how to care for such
animals and a working capital to
provide surroundings at least as good
as they came from. To use the
words of a poet, Heaven is not
reached by a single bound" neither
have these record priced bulls and
cows been developed in day by
some slight turn of the wrist. Look
ing over the breeding charts of
these animals, we find they trace to