DAIRY HERD SIRES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 68

DAIRY HERD SIRES

The importance of choosing only sbes of goodi breeding and pronounced milking strains has frequently been referred to in the columns of the New Zeal a. d Mail". Borne hold to the opinion that U e sire has everything ho do with, the pr°geny of a herd. Such people therefore consider that it is only necessary to procure a good bull to mate with coats, irrespective of the merits of the latter, to ensure good results. This unfortunately is an error that numbers fall into. There are many who have been unable to buy superior cows to begin Avith, but through using none but the best sires have improved their herds and brought their dairy stock almost to perfection. Tms> however, is a slow process, and it should be remembered that excellence on both sides is. desirable, and that in founding a herd coaa's should not be selfected indiscriminately. Professor Shaw, in the “Dairy World," states:—“Dairy sires are chpsen from ancestry that have been noted for abundant milk production. ■Why are they chosen ? Because it is be lieved that they do exercise an influence on milk production in the progeny. This belief is founded upon observation, and what is better, it is founded on fact. The advanced registries among dairy cattle ha.ve made it.clear that some dairy sires do beget a larger number of high milk producers than other dairy sires.- But what it may he asked, has this to do with the question in hand ? Simply this: It shows that it is possible to affect milk production through the sire. The fact will not be disputed that milk production influences breeding. Abundant milk production favours free and abundant breeding. If, therefore, the sire thus influences abundant milk production, he influences free breeding. But yet again it may be claimed, and Avitii reason, that a sire, like a dam, influences the Avhole organisation of the progeny. We have no faith in the somewhat' popular heresy that the sire is chiefly concerned in the faith in the somewhat popular heresy that the sire is chiefly concerned in the trans mission of certain organs and properties, and that the dam is chiefly concerned in the transmission of certain other organs and -properties. We firmly believe in the truth that both sire and dam influence every feature of the organisation, and that the degree of influence exercised will be proportionate to the degree of the prepotency possessed by both. If this view is correct, and avo think it is more easily defended than any other view beating upon this aspect of transmission, then it follows that transmission through the sire does affect-the physical organisation of the female, including those organs immediately concerned in abundant production."