CROSS-DREEDING DAIRY COWS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 46, 15 June 1917, Page 7

CROSS-DREEDING DAIRY COWS.

Several years ago sofßfe milk producers, against advice from various quarters, started in to cross-breed dairy cows, says the “New York Farmer.” With most of them ths aim was to produce "cows able to give Holstein quantity with Jersey quality." Their idea of Equality" was confined to the buttex-fat percentage of the milk. Reports of their work are coming in now. The results are exactly what the well-informed breeder would expect.

The crosses arc mongrels. The cows arc larger than Jerseys but smaller than Holstoin-Friesians. Some of them give a little morel milk than the Jerseys in their ancestral lines, but none of then give so much milk as their Holstein-Frie-sian ancestors gave. Some of them put a little more butter-fat “Tnto their small yield of milk than their Holstein-Friesian ancestors put into their larger yield, and none of them, equal their Jersey ancestors in but-ter-fat percentage. In short, these cases of cross-breed-ing pure-bred animals have resulted in the production of animals that are failures. They are worthless at the pail. They axe dubious y; breedera. They combine more of the defects and the weaknesses of their ancestors than they show of their, merits and their best traits. The moral is that cross-breeding iW a mistake for the farmer. No breed! of cows is likely to be produced that will "combine all the merits of all the milk breeds.” * « The crossing of breeds Is -the work of experts, of scientists, of students, not the work of average practical farmers, on average farms. Each dairy breed is a distinct entity with peculiar merits. Crossing one breed with another simply breaks down a definite valuable union and sets its elements free to form ntew combinations and in the nature of things the new combinations cannot be superior to the old combinations. Farmers cannot hope to accomplish great or even good things by throwing pure-bred cattle, horses, sheep, swine and poultry over into mongrelism.