TO PRODUCE THE BEST COWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 21

TO PRODUCE THE BEST COWS.

This is a very important question •with the breeder of dairy cows. The making of superior cows is what he is after. It is an old and well-«cttlcd opinion amonsr men that daughters take after their fathers and sons after their mother*, in what might be called "preponderant heredity." Darwin enunciates the same law, ive believe. Now, if this be in the main a truth, most breeders are working against The law in their efforts to breed on an improving and upwaid grade.

They pay much more attemion to ihe> quality of the cow as the parent of heifers than they do to the bull. The true working of that law would be to the effect that a good cow v. ill reproduce her good qualities, not so much through her daughters as through Itm- sons, to be shown finally in her granddaughters.

Of course, it often occurs that a fine cowwill produce fine heifers, but the c e aie the exceptions that prove the rule. The working of this law shows how very important it is to pay the greatest of attention to the securing of a richly-endov. ed bull, if we are after first-class heifer 6. In other words, look to the bull for heifers, and to the cow for bulls.

It will not hurt, however, to have a good mother for both sons and daughters, but, we repeat, that higher ensidcration bbould be given to the qualities of the maternal lines of blood in our bulls. — HoardS Dairyman.