The breeding industry, its value to the country, and its needs / by Walter Heape.

  • Heape, Walter, 1855-1929
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The breeding industry, its value to the country, and its needs / by Walter Heape. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and he wants sure breeding returns. Until recently, the aim of all cattle breeding in this country was the production of beef. The dairy cow is a modern development with us, in com¬ parison with those who originally built up the Guernsey and Jersey breeds of cattle. With comparatively few exceptions the most elemen¬ tary needs in breeding for the dairy are still not understood. It is beef which is in the breeder’s eye, and he cannot eradicate it. The result has been a “ general purposes cow,” a cow which is capable of being fattened for the butcher when it ceases to be used for milk. It is not physio¬ logically reasonable to suppose you can get, economically, the best milk and a maximum quantity of it, from an animal which is essentially fitted to fatten ; nor can you expect to be able to produce the best meat on a cow, or on the offspring of a cow, specially designed for milking. The “general purposes cow” is really fitted for neither one thing nor the other, and where the best meat and the best milk is required, as it