We have not mentioned the so-called "Native" stock as a dairy breed,
because it is not a breed, but a mixture of breeds--crazy-quilt stock.
We would not be understood as considering it of no value for dairy
purposes, for when carefully selected, a dairy herd of common stock
may be very valuable. Great milkers and great butter makers are not
uncommon among them; but there is such a mixture of blood in their
veins that there is no guarantee of their producing their like. They
originally sprang from the best animals that the early emigrants could
select to bring over with them from Europe. But they were subsequently
cross-bred so promiscuously that no trace of the original blood
can be discovered with any certainty. They were also subjected to
great exposure and hardship, with scanty food, which had a greatly
deteriorating tendency. But, perhaps worst of all, there was no careful
selection of males for breeding purposes, nor any attempt at judicious
coupling for improvement, or for even the maintenance of the existing
status. In short, the entire treatment and all the surroundings had a
deteriorating influence and a tendency to the production of scrubs. If
we were to take all the existing pure-blood stock and breed it together
promiscuously, while at the same time subjecting it to harsh treatment
and neglect, it would not require a very long period to reduce it to
the same mongrel and scrub condition in which we now find the common
stock of the country. Yet some of our common stock make excellent
crosses, when pure-blood males are used. But no improvement or valuable
results could come from using common stock bulls on pure-blood or other
cows. The male has the controlling influence, and to the constant use
of pure-blood males must we look for the improvement of the common
stock of the country and for the maintenance of the existing status
of the pure-bloods; and not only must we use pure-blood males, but
keep up a constant and careful selection of the best. Neither should
we trust to cross-bred or grade bulls for breeding purposes; for the
progeny will inherit the traits of ancestors on one side or the other,
and hence will lack in uniformity, both in appearance and in quality.
When we use a grade bull, the result is just the opposite of what it
is when we use a pure blood. With the latter, we get half-bloods, then
quarter, then eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, and so on, toward
pure blood; but with a half-blood grade bull, the first offspring from
common stock has only one-fourth pure blood, the next cross has only
one-eighth, the third one-sixteenth pure blood, and so on--reducing
the purity in the same ratio as the use of pure blood improves it--if
we continue to breed from the grade male offspring. If we always use a
half-blood male, there may be a slight improvement in the blood. But
the improvement is too slow and the benefit too uncertain to make the
use of a grade bull advisable when a pure blood can be had.