Beef and Milk.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 188, 22 January 1887, Page 4

Beef and Milk.

Fashions change among neat cattle raisers as they do among other people. Breeds and families which are favourites to-day may be superseded to-morrow. Breeders of cattle not in fashion are more careful in their selection of breeding stock and in outcrosses selected, so that the highest qualities of their various strains of blood may be developed. No breed has an origin measured more directly by results at the pail than the Shorthorns The early cows were all milkers, and there are comparatively few heifers now, even of the distinctively beef families which, with proper training, when carrying their first and second calves, and while milking, cannot be made fair, if not large, milkers. It has been more profitable to breed Shorthorns for beef, that the demand for bulls for beef -breeding herds should be met. Hence, milk has been neglected and beef qualities made the most of. The Shorthorned steers on the plains and on the blue grass pastures hold their own against all comers for profitable feeders, while in the great milk and butter regions of New England, New York, Ohio, and j farther west, it has been the popular verdict for fifty yeaTs that grade Shorthorn cows have proved more profitable as milkers thaii cows of any other breed. We are applying a now test. It is not now quantity of milk which is taken as the criterion of value, but the amount of the "total solids " — that is, of that portion of the milk which is not water. — American Agriculturist,