COLOUR FADS.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 47, 26 September 1911, Page 4

COLOUR FADS.

PROGRESSIVE BREEDING OBSTRUCTED. A crusade of interest to judges has been entered upon by “Hoard’s Dairyman” against the tendency on the part of breeders of dairy cattle to run to faddism on points of colour or some - other bare notion that has no bearing whatever on the real merits of the breed. It is argued that it would be a grand thing for the true progress of dairy cattle breeding if the business could be emancipated in some way from the silly domination of these faddist notions. Proceeding, the journal in question deals with the matter in characteristic American style. The Ayrshire people, it >says, indulged themselves for years in the fad idea of short teats until they nearly ruined this sterling breed in the estimation of all discerning practical people; Now they are doing what they can to change the Ayrshire cow over, or in other words, repair the effects of their former folly. The Jersey breeders followed off after the strange gods of a black nose and switch and solid colour, and all the time nature was raising her voice in constant protest against such ideas by producing cows of wonderful merits, having light noses, white switches, and broken colour. But the faddists kept the burden on as long as they could. The Holstein breeders are fast binding the shackles of a fad notion of colour on their breed. There must be more white, and nature and reason ask, “What has that to do with breeding for merit?” The faddists cannot answer, for they are not real breeders, governing themselves with sound principles based on physiology and that alone. The Guernsey breeders are fast establishing their share of this fool work also, in that a cow or bull must have a light nose in order to be worth the price. This amounts to an absolute handicap on the breed, and imposed a sacrifice of many dollars in the selling value of a worthy animal. It blinds the eye to the larger and better evidences of quality, and sends many a right valuable, highlybred bull-calf to the block, and puts a bar sinister on. the heifer. No amount of protest has yet been able to lift this stupid obstacle out of the path of true progressive breeding. It costs the breeders a large amount of money annually, and the breed itself the sacrifice of some of its very best animals. It is stupid, the article concludes, for any breeder or association to allow these warty excrescences of mere faddism to take the place of sound judgment in determining what are “ good points” in their animals.