The Business of Better Breeding
A Kittitas farmer shares his success in upgrading his dairy herd, proving that selective breeding and data-driven management were the keys to agricultural prosperity in the 1890s.
Mr. George W. Carver, in stating his dairy experience before the Ellensburg institute, said that he commenced hauling milk to the creamery on March 1st from a herd of fifteen cows whose average test was 3.4. In 1894 he increased his herd to twenty cows, got a Jersey bull and commenced breeding up his herd, saving the grade Jersey heifers. During 1896 he milked thirty-one cows, eleven of which were half-blood Jersey heifers two years old. His herd during the year gave 211,070 lbs. of milk, producing 9,498 3-20 lbs. of butter fat, for which the creamery paid $1628.60. In addition he raised thirty-one calves. The net earnings in butterfat alone per cow was a little better than $52.50, to say nothing of the value of the calf and extra skimmilk.
“There is such a thing as scrub feeding as well as scrub stock.”
This report highlights the transition of Washington agriculture from subsistence farming to a data-driven industry. Today, the Kittitas Valley remains a hub for agricultural innovation, though the focus has shifted from small-scale dairy to large-scale hay and cattle operations.
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