WEBVTT 00:00:14.189 --> 00:00:20.969 Creeping over fields of green Remembering the 00:00:20.969 --> 00:00:27.269 faces The moments unseen The hands that built 00:00:27.269 --> 00:00:33.590 a dynasty The vision in their eyes Echoes in 00:00:33.590 --> 00:00:38.810 the auction bar Beneath an endless sky This is 00:00:38.810 --> 00:01:04.370 the bull buy Turn the bar Welcome back to the 00:01:04.370 --> 00:01:07.010 Bullvine Podcast. If you are a regular listener, 00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:09.030 you know we spend a lot of time on this show 00:01:09.030 --> 00:01:11.750 looking forward. We talk about the next index 00:01:11.750 --> 00:01:13.989 release, the latest genomic breakthroughs, the 00:01:13.989 --> 00:01:16.870 new tech hitting the barn floor. Right. Always 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:21.370 what's next. Exactly. But today, today we are 00:01:21.370 --> 00:01:23.629 hitting the brakes. We are stopping the truck, 00:01:23.709 --> 00:01:26.189 turning off the engine, and looking in the rearview 00:01:26.189 --> 00:01:28.989 mirror. Because the story we have today isn't 00:01:28.989 --> 00:01:32.299 just history. It is... Well, it's the blueprint. 00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:35.299 It really is. When I was digging through the 00:01:35.299 --> 00:01:37.480 source material for this, the architects of the 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:40.159 black and white breed, it honestly stopped me 00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:43.340 in my tracks. It felt incredibly modern, even 00:01:43.340 --> 00:01:45.659 though the ink on these documents has been dry 00:01:45.659 --> 00:01:49.280 for 150 years. It really is something, isn't 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.540 it? You know, as farmers, we get so caught up 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:54.239 in the grind, the 4 a .m. alarms, the broken 00:01:54.239 --> 00:01:57.379 scrapers, the milk price volatility. It is so 00:01:57.379 --> 00:01:59.459 easy to forget that we are standing on a foundation 00:01:59.459 --> 00:02:02.200 that someone else poured. And today's conversation 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:04.239 is exactly the kind of thing that reminds you 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.739 why you put your boots on in the morning. We 00:02:06.739 --> 00:02:09.379 aren't just milking cows. We are continuing a 00:02:09.379 --> 00:02:12.360 project that started with some incredibly stubborn, 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:16.180 visionary, and slightly crazy people in the 19th 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:18.789 century. Stubborn is definitely the right word. 00:02:18.909 --> 00:02:21.949 We are digging into the lives of four specific 00:02:21.949 --> 00:02:26.770 visionaries who, between 1852 and 1899, basically 00:02:26.770 --> 00:02:29.370 imported the engine of the modern dairy industry. 00:02:29.650 --> 00:02:31.990 And I want to set the expectations right now. 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:34.979 This isn't a dry lecture about herd book dates. 00:02:35.139 --> 00:02:37.560 No, not at all. We are talking about blind ambition, 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:40.300 literally. We're talking about walking cows through 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:43.000 snowstorms. We are talking about financial risks 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.580 that would make a modern banker faint dead away 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:47.500 in his office. That is the perfect way to frame 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:49.719 it. When we look at the Holstein cow today, that 00:02:49.719 --> 00:02:51.419 black and white dominant force that produces 00:02:51.419 --> 00:02:53.800 the vast majority of the world's milk, we take 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:55.909 her for granted. We assume she was inevitable. 00:02:56.129 --> 00:02:57.849 Like, of course the dairy industry looks like 00:02:57.849 --> 00:03:00.229 this, but it wasn't inevitable. It was engineered. 00:03:00.389 --> 00:03:02.310 It was built by a very small group of people, 00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:06.009 a blind farmer in upstate New York, a massive 00:03:06.009 --> 00:03:08.210 Boston merchant who probably weighed more than 00:03:08.210 --> 00:03:10.530 a heifer, some fruit growers who just wanted 00:03:10.530 --> 00:03:13.610 cheap fertilizer, and a wealthy reformer. I want 00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:15.370 to start with the image that hooked me immediately. 00:03:15.669 --> 00:03:18.469 This is the hook of the story, and it is honestly 00:03:18.469 --> 00:03:20.870 cinematic. Okay. I want you to picture the scene. 00:03:21.879 --> 00:03:25.099 It is the 1890s. We're in Lacona, New York at 00:03:25.099 --> 00:03:27.439 a place called Brookside Farm. The air is probably 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:30.520 thick with dust and the smell of hay. And standing 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:32.199 in the middle of the aisle is Henry Stevens. 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:35.139 Henry Stevens, the father of the breed in so 00:03:35.139 --> 00:03:36.860 many ways. But the thing you have to understand 00:03:36.860 --> 00:03:38.860 about Henry at this point in his life is that 00:03:38.860 --> 00:03:41.580 he is operating in the dark. Right. He lost his 00:03:41.580 --> 00:03:44.680 sight in middle age due to an illness. So picture 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:47.560 a working dairy barn, the chaos, the animals 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:50.379 moving. And here is a man navigating it without 00:03:50.379 --> 00:03:52.750 sight. But he isn't just navigating it. He is 00:03:52.750 --> 00:03:55.449 dominating it. The source material describes 00:03:55.449 --> 00:03:58.770 a moment where he is examining a cow. He isn't 00:03:58.770 --> 00:04:01.550 standing back, looking at her top line. He is 00:04:01.550 --> 00:04:04.569 right there, hands on. He runs his weathered 00:04:04.569 --> 00:04:07.550 fingers along her spine. He traces the loin, 00:04:07.710 --> 00:04:10.650 moves down the rump, feels the pin bones. He 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:12.889 is mapping the animal with his fingertips. And 00:04:12.889 --> 00:04:14.789 this is where it gets technical. And frankly, 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:18.300 unbelievable he could tell his sons ward ralph 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:22.300 and floyd who were his eyes in many ways exactly 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:24.379 what that cow looked like and you don't just 00:04:24.379 --> 00:04:26.600 mean her frame no i don't mean just her confirmation 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.420 i mean her color he would run his hand over the 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:31.639 rib and say she has a black patch here and a 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:34.279 white blaze here hold on that sounds like mythology 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:36.560 i mean come on can you actually feel the color 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:38.459 of hair or was he just messing with his sons 00:04:38.459 --> 00:04:40.480 you know i've thought about this a lot and it 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.519 sounds impossible right but there are theories 00:04:43.689 --> 00:04:45.610 Biologically, is white hair different from black 00:04:45.610 --> 00:04:48.810 hair? I have no idea. Maybe. There is a theory 00:04:48.810 --> 00:04:51.730 that pigmentation affects the texture or the 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:55.509 oiliness of the hair shaft. Or maybe the skin 00:04:55.509 --> 00:04:57.490 thickness varies slightly between the pigmented 00:04:57.490 --> 00:04:59.589 and non -pigmented areas because of how they 00:04:59.589 --> 00:05:01.509 absorb heat. So there might be a physical difference. 00:05:01.850 --> 00:05:03.970 There might be. But whether it was scientifically 00:05:03.970 --> 00:05:06.829 accurate or not, his sons believed him. That's 00:05:06.829 --> 00:05:09.810 the key. They trusted his tactile judgment more 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:12.939 than their own 20 -20 vision. If Henry felt the 00:05:12.939 --> 00:05:15.040 cow and said she's the one, they bought her. 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:18.339 No questions asked. That level of trust is wild. 00:05:18.779 --> 00:05:20.779 But it wasn't just a parlor trick. He wasn't 00:05:20.779 --> 00:05:23.759 doing this to show off. He was looking or feeling 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.379 for something specific. What was he hunting for 00:05:26.379 --> 00:05:28.439 with those hands? He was feeling for quality. 00:05:28.939 --> 00:05:31.620 In the 1890s, before we had linear scoring or 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:34.060 ultrasound, quality meant the fineness of the 00:05:34.060 --> 00:05:36.759 hide, the silkiness of the coat, the pliability 00:05:36.759 --> 00:05:39.279 of the utter texture. Okay, so it's a whole body 00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:43.370 feel. Exactly. A coarse, thick -hided cow was 00:05:43.370 --> 00:05:47.170 seen as a beef animal, a slow metabolizer. Stevens 00:05:47.170 --> 00:05:50.050 wanted a cow that felt like a racehorse. Thin 00:05:50.050 --> 00:05:52.769 skin, visible veins, what we would call dairy 00:05:52.769 --> 00:05:55.490 character today. He believed that a cow with 00:05:55.490 --> 00:05:57.870 handling quality would convert feed into milk 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:00.829 more efficiently. And he was right. And his hands 00:06:00.829 --> 00:06:02.689 picked out the legends. He assembled what they 00:06:02.689 --> 00:06:05.850 called the Big Four Foundation cows, DeKalb II, 00:06:06.149 --> 00:06:09.110 Netherland Hengervald, Bell Korndyke, and Helena 00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:11.540 Burke. Those names might sound like ancient history 00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:14.100 to some listeners. They do, but if you are milking 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:17.100 Holsteins in 2026, you are milking Henry Stevens' 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:20.100 legacy. D. Cole II is often called the queen 00:06:20.100 --> 00:06:22.779 of the breed. Stevens bought her because of what 00:06:22.779 --> 00:06:25.019 he felt in her structure. He didn't have a genomic 00:06:25.019 --> 00:06:27.639 proof. He didn't have a sire summary. He had 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.040 his intuition and his fingertips. That connects 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.319 so deeply to the idea of stockmanship. We have 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:34.500 so much data now. We have robots that tell us 00:06:34.500 --> 00:06:36.740 conductivity and rumination minutes, but there 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:38.540 is still something irreplaceable about putting 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:40.990 your hands on the animal. That is the big takeaway 00:06:40.990 --> 00:06:43.990 here. Data is crucial. And we will see later 00:06:43.990 --> 00:06:47.269 that these guys loved data. But stockmanship 00:06:47.269 --> 00:06:49.509 is the art that makes the science work. Right. 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:51.529 Stevens represents that intuitive connection. 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.329 He knew his cows. He knew their temperament, 00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:56.930 their appetite, their quirks. You can't get that 00:06:56.930 --> 00:06:59.009 from a spreadsheet. You have to be in the barn. 00:06:59.170 --> 00:07:02.170 So we have the blind visionary. He didn't start 00:07:02.170 --> 00:07:04.230 this from scratch. These cows had to come from 00:07:04.230 --> 00:07:06.170 somewhere. They weren't native to New York or 00:07:06.170 --> 00:07:09.230 Boston. They were Dutch. And getting them here 00:07:09.230 --> 00:07:11.569 wasn't exactly hopping on a Delta flight. Let's 00:07:11.569 --> 00:07:14.709 go back to the origin story. It involves a ship, 00:07:14.730 --> 00:07:17.689 some rum, and a very large man named Winthrop 00:07:17.689 --> 00:07:20.750 Chenery. Winthrop Chenery, the merchant. This 00:07:20.750 --> 00:07:22.410 guy was a character. He was based in Boston. 00:07:22.490 --> 00:07:24.569 And the descriptions of him are just immense. 00:07:25.410 --> 00:07:28.639 Six foot four, over 300 pounds. Giant of a man 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:31.180 in the 1850s. He made his money in the trade 00:07:31.180 --> 00:07:34.759 routes, importing spirits, sugar, commodities. 00:07:35.220 --> 00:07:38.379 And in 1852, one of his ships docks in Boston. 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:40.899 It's carrying the usual cargo rum, probably. 00:07:41.100 --> 00:07:43.199 But the shipmaster has something else on board. 00:07:43.339 --> 00:07:46.959 Right. The captain had brought a cow along. Now, 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:48.680 for the listeners who don't know maritime history, 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:51.560 this was standard practice. There was no refrigeration. 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:53.759 None at all. So if you wanted fresh milk for 00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:56.240 your coffee or your cooking during a four -week 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:59.079 Atlantic crossing, you brought a cow. She lived 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:01.779 on the deck, probably in a makeshift pun, bracing 00:08:01.779 --> 00:08:03.639 herself against the waves. She must have been 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:06.079 incredibly tough to survive a North Atlantic 00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:08.079 crossing on the deck of a sailing ship. Tough 00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:10.800 as nails. And when they docked, she was probably 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:14.720 gone, tired, and happy to see land. Channery 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:17.620 is walking the pier, checking his cargo. He sees 00:08:17.620 --> 00:08:20.459 this cow. And he doesn't just see a cow. He sees 00:08:20.459 --> 00:08:24.199 a machine. He asks the captain, how did she milk? 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:26.720 And the answer must have been shocking. It was. 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:30.100 Even after a sea voyage on terrible feed, she 00:08:30.100 --> 00:08:32.259 was outproducing the local native cattle that 00:08:32.259 --> 00:08:34.460 were living in comfortable barns. Channery was 00:08:34.460 --> 00:08:37.080 a businessman. He recognized efficiency when 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:39.580 he saw it. He bought her on the spot. It wasn't 00:08:39.580 --> 00:08:42.360 a grand plan to revolutionize agriculture. It 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:45.159 was an impulse buy. He essentially bought a used 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:47.580 car because the mileage was good. I love that. 00:08:47.639 --> 00:08:50.379 It starts with an impulse buy. But then you have 00:08:50.379 --> 00:08:52.759 the second figure, who is the complete opposite 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:56.399 of the merchant. Garrett Smith Miller, the reformer. 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.860 Miller is fascinating because he comes from serious, 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:03.100 serious old money. His grandfather, Garrett Smith, 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.179 was one of the wealthiest men in New York State, 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:07.960 but he was also a radical abolitionist. A huge 00:09:07.960 --> 00:09:10.799 figure in that movement. A giant. The family 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:13.000 estate in Peterborough, New York, wasn't just 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.000 a farm, it was a sanctuary. It was a major stop 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:18.059 on the Underground Railroad. We aren't just talking 00:09:18.059 --> 00:09:20.500 about passive support. I read that John Brown, 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:23.419 the John Brown who raided Harper's Ferry, plotted 00:09:23.419 --> 00:09:26.279 that raid in their living room. Exactly. So young 00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:28.539 Garrett Smith Miller grows up in this intense 00:09:28.539 --> 00:09:31.299 moral environment. The air he breathed was about 00:09:31.299 --> 00:09:34.019 reform. It was about fixing the world. You fix 00:09:34.019 --> 00:09:36.259 slavery, you fix temperance, you fix women's 00:09:36.259 --> 00:09:39.100 rights. And Miller, being a farm kid at heart, 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:41.820 decided he was going to fix agriculture. So how 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:44.440 does a rich kid with a reformer mindset land 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:46.860 on Holstein cattle? He was a student at Harvard. 00:09:47.179 --> 00:09:49.559 In the evenings, he would go for long walks to 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:52.279 clear his head. And Winthrop Chenery's farm in 00:09:52.279 --> 00:09:55.480 Belmont was nearby. So Miller walks past the 00:09:55.480 --> 00:09:58.399 pastures in the twilight, and he sees these black 00:09:58.399 --> 00:10:01.259 and white cattle channeries imports. And he has 00:10:01.259 --> 00:10:03.879 an epiphany. He does. He looks at the native 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:06.899 cattle, which were mostly scrub cattle, devons, 00:10:06.899 --> 00:10:09.940 maybe some poor shorthorns, and he sees inefficiency. 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:13.200 They ate a lot and gave very little. Then he 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:15.000 looks at the Dutch cattle. The difference must 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.580 have been night and day. Was. And he realized 00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:20.200 that if he could bring those genetics to American 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:23.080 farmers, he could lower the cost of food production. 00:10:23.610 --> 00:10:26.210 He famously said his mission was to make two 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:28.110 quarts of milk where there had been one before. 00:10:28.309 --> 00:10:30.509 That is the definition of efficiency. It's almost 00:10:30.509 --> 00:10:32.990 a tech startup mentality. I'm going to disrupt 00:10:32.990 --> 00:10:35.509 the milk supply chain. It is. It wasn't just 00:10:35.509 --> 00:10:37.549 about breeding pretty cows for him. It was about 00:10:37.549 --> 00:10:41.590 feeding a growing nation, a moral cause. So we 00:10:41.590 --> 00:10:44.289 have the merchant and the reformer. But my personal 00:10:44.289 --> 00:10:46.909 favorite group is the third one, Smiths and Powell, 00:10:47.110 --> 00:10:49.889 because they weren't dairymen at all. They were 00:10:49.889 --> 00:10:53.200 fruit growers. The nurserymen. wing and judson 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:55.899 smith and edward powell they were based in syracuse 00:10:55.899 --> 00:10:59.139 they ran a massive commercial nursery thousands 00:10:59.139 --> 00:11:01.500 of fruit trees ornamental shrubs strawberries 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:05.019 they were huge but they had a problem the soil 00:11:05.389 --> 00:11:08.309 The soil needed food. This is the 1870s. You 00:11:08.309 --> 00:11:10.429 can't just call up the co -op and order a truckload 00:11:10.429 --> 00:11:12.289 of synthetic nitrogen. It didn't exist. Right. 00:11:12.409 --> 00:11:14.970 You had guano, which was expensive, or you had 00:11:14.970 --> 00:11:18.269 manure. They needed massive industrial quantities 00:11:18.269 --> 00:11:20.649 of manure to keep those trees growing. So they 00:11:20.649 --> 00:11:23.690 looked at the Holstein cow and saw a fertilizer 00:11:23.690 --> 00:11:27.009 spreader. Basically, they saw a large animal 00:11:27.009 --> 00:11:29.889 with a massive appetite that produced a large 00:11:29.889 --> 00:11:32.269 volume of waste. That's what they wanted. They 00:11:32.269 --> 00:11:34.809 bought the cows to feed the trees. The milk was 00:11:34.809 --> 00:11:37.110 just a byproduct. That is hilarious. But then 00:11:37.110 --> 00:11:39.090 something changed. The accountant Powell started 00:11:39.090 --> 00:11:40.830 running the numbers. He looked at the ledger 00:11:40.830 --> 00:11:43.389 and realized, wait a minute. The milk checks 00:11:43.389 --> 00:11:45.730 from these manure machines are actually making 00:11:45.730 --> 00:11:47.750 more money than the pears and the apples. The 00:11:47.750 --> 00:11:49.970 side hustle beat the main hustle. Completely. 00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:53.250 They realized these cows were economic revolutions 00:11:53.250 --> 00:11:56.600 on four legs. So they pivoted. They turned their 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.440 farm, Lakeside, into the Ellis Island of cattle. 00:11:59.799 --> 00:12:02.139 They stopped worrying about the trees and started 00:12:02.139 --> 00:12:05.759 importing cows by the hundreds. By 1889, they 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:08.299 had 500 head. They were the Amazon distribution 00:12:08.299 --> 00:12:10.919 center of the Holstein breed. It's amazing how 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:12.919 different their motivations were, but they all 00:12:12.919 --> 00:12:16.220 ended up in the same place. However, any good 00:12:16.220 --> 00:12:19.120 story needs a crisis. And for these guys, the 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.100 crisis was life or death. We have to talk about 00:12:22.100 --> 00:12:24.639 the turning point, and specifically, the plague. 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:26.639 This is the part of the story where you realize 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.220 how fragile this whole experiment was. It's 1859. 00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:31.899 Winthrop Channery has spent seven years building 00:12:31.899 --> 00:12:34.019 his herd. He's selecting the best, importing 00:12:34.019 --> 00:12:36.840 them, breeding them, and then tragedy strikes. 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:40.220 Rinderpest. For the modern listener, that word 00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:42.320 might just sound like an old history term. But 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:44.480 Rinderpest, the cattle plague, is terrifying. 00:12:44.879 --> 00:12:46.779 It's the closest thing to a zombie apocalypse 00:12:46.779 --> 00:12:50.960 for cattle. It's a morbillivirus related to measles. 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.600 It causes fever, lesions, death. It is highly 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:58.559 contagious and nearly 100 % fatal in naive herds. 00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:01.279 When it hit Massachusetts, the state government 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:04.279 panicked. And rightly so. Right. If it escaped, 00:13:04.539 --> 00:13:06.480 it could wipe out the entire U .S. livestock 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:08.899 industry. So what do they do? They didn't quarantine. 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:10.779 They didn't vaccinate. There was no vaccine. 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:14.120 They ordered total depopulation. The state vets 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:16.320 came to Chenery's farm, condemned the herd, and 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:19.440 killed every single animal. I want to pause there. 00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:23.179 Imagine being Chenery. You are this proud, successful 00:13:23.179 --> 00:13:25.759 man. You've poured your passion and your fortune 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:28.080 into these animals, and you have to stand there 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:30.940 and watch them be destroyed. The silence in that 00:13:30.940 --> 00:13:33.340 barn afterwards must have been crushing. It's 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:36.200 the nightmare scenario. Most people, even tough 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:37.960 farmers, would have broken. They would have taken 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:40.320 the insurance check, if there was any, sold the 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:43.360 land and gone back to the rum trade. Why risk 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:45.299 your heart again? But Chenery didn't do that. 00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:49.360 And this is the measure of the man. The source 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:51.580 material says that on the very same day the herd 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:53.980 was slaughtered, while the smell of gunpowder 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.720 and death was probably still in the air, he went 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.960 to his study and wrote a letter to his agent 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:02.460 in Holland. He ordered more cows. He ordered 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:04.840 replacements immediately. He didn't wait a week 00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.200 to grieve. He didn't hesitate. He knew the vision 00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:10.419 was right, even if the look was bad. That is 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:13.240 resilience on a level I can barely comprehend. 00:14:13.779 --> 00:14:16.340 That is incredible. And that resilience saved 00:14:16.340 --> 00:14:18.580 the breed, because the next importation included 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:20.799 the ancestors of almost everything we have today. 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:23.740 Exactly. If he had quit, the whole stein cow 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:25.919 in America might have died out right then and 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:28.120 there. That one decision changed everything. 00:14:28.649 --> 00:14:30.389 Miller, the reformer, faced a different kind 00:14:30.389 --> 00:14:33.210 of challenge. Not a virus, but the weather. The 00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:35.570 snowstorm story? This one feels very visceral 00:14:35.570 --> 00:14:38.370 to anyone who farms in the North. Oh yeah, this 00:14:38.370 --> 00:14:41.509 is classic upstate New York. So Miller convinces 00:14:41.509 --> 00:14:43.549 his brother Charles to go to West Friesland and 00:14:43.549 --> 00:14:46.629 buy some stock. Charles buys a bull named Hollander 00:14:46.629 --> 00:14:49.909 and three cows, Crown Princess, Dowager, and 00:14:49.909 --> 00:14:52.690 Fraulein. They ship them across the ocean, then 00:14:52.690 --> 00:14:55.080 put them on a train to Canistota, New York. They 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:58.820 arrive on October 19th, 1869. Now in October, 00:14:58.860 --> 00:15:01.080 you expect maybe some rain, some chill. But this 00:15:01.080 --> 00:15:03.279 is the snow belt. They step off the train into 00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:06.139 five inches of wet, heavy snow. And they aren't 00:15:06.139 --> 00:15:08.039 at the farm yet. They have to walk from Kenistota 00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:10.639 to Peterborough. That is not a short walk. And 00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:13.200 they are walking on the old plank road. Explain 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:15.139 the plank road for people who don't know. Before 00:15:15.139 --> 00:15:17.639 asphalt, in muddy areas, they would lay down 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:20.960 wooden planks to create a road surface. Now imagine 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:23.659 wet wood covered in snow and slush. Oh, that's 00:15:23.659 --> 00:15:26.269 a nightmare. It is slick as ice, and you are 00:15:26.269 --> 00:15:29.110 trying to lead four terrified cattle who have 00:15:29.110 --> 00:15:31.970 just come off a ship and a train up a hill on 00:15:31.970 --> 00:15:34.610 slippery wood in a snowstorm. And these cows 00:15:34.610 --> 00:15:37.409 are valuable. If one slips and breaks a leg, 00:15:37.529 --> 00:15:40.149 it's a catastrophe. It was a high -stakes cattle 00:15:40.149 --> 00:15:42.629 drive. Miller describes the struggle of getting 00:15:42.629 --> 00:15:44.990 them up the hill, but they made it. And once 00:15:44.990 --> 00:15:47.289 they got them into the barn, the comparison was 00:15:47.289 --> 00:15:50.549 stark. Right. Miller had nine native cows in 00:15:50.549 --> 00:15:53.330 the barn. Those three Dutch cows, once they recovered 00:15:53.330 --> 00:15:56.250 from the trip, produced two -thirds as much milk 00:15:56.250 --> 00:15:58.669 as the entire group of nine natives combined. 00:15:59.070 --> 00:16:01.909 Wow. That walk in the snow proved the concept. 00:16:01.970 --> 00:16:04.649 It was the physical demonstration of two courts 00:16:04.649 --> 00:16:06.769 where there was one. It was. The proof was in 00:16:06.769 --> 00:16:09.529 the pail. Immediately. Now, eventually, these 00:16:09.529 --> 00:16:11.429 different threads, the merchant, the reformer, 00:16:11.429 --> 00:16:13.909 the nurseryman, and the blind farmer, had to 00:16:13.909 --> 00:16:16.909 intersect. And there was a moment, a specific 00:16:16.909 --> 00:16:20.009 afternoon in 1876, that feels like a scene from 00:16:20.009 --> 00:16:23.340 a movie. The buggy moment. Serendipity is a funny 00:16:23.340 --> 00:16:26.460 thing. By 1876, Miller's Farm in Peterborough 00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:28.440 is becoming famous. People are hearing about 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.840 these milk records. So on one autumn afternoon, 00:16:31.139 --> 00:16:33.980 two separate buggies pull into his long driveway 00:16:33.980 --> 00:16:36.259 at almost the exact same time. Who was in them? 00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:38.919 In one buggy, you have the Smiths, the nurserymen 00:16:38.919 --> 00:16:41.720 from Syracuse. In the other, you have Henry Stevens, 00:16:42.159 --> 00:16:44.179 the blind farmer. Though he had some sight left 00:16:44.179 --> 00:16:45.759 at this point, they didn't know each other. They 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:47.740 just happened to arrive at the sorts of the genetics 00:16:47.740 --> 00:16:50.370 at the same moment. The two future dynasties 00:16:50.370 --> 00:16:52.549 of the breed meeting in a driveway. That's incredible. 00:16:52.889 --> 00:16:54.629 It's amazing. They both came to look. They both 00:16:54.629 --> 00:16:57.629 stayed to buy. Stevens bought two cows that day, 00:16:57.789 --> 00:17:02.610 May and Juno. He paid $300 a piece. Contextualize 00:17:02.610 --> 00:17:06.970 that $300. What did that mean in 1876? A laborer 00:17:06.970 --> 00:17:10.130 on a farm in 1870s might make a dollar a day, 00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:14.230 maybe less. So $300 is a year's wages for one 00:17:14.230 --> 00:17:17.279 cow. A whole year's salary. It's like paying 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.039 $40 ,000 or $50 ,000 for a commercial cow today. 00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:22.819 It was a massive commitment of capital. But that 00:17:22.819 --> 00:17:25.539 handshake, that meeting, launched the networks 00:17:25.539 --> 00:17:27.700 that would dominate the breed for the next 50 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:30.359 years. It sounds like a gentleman's club, but 00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:32.519 it wasn't always polite. We have to talk about 00:17:32.519 --> 00:17:34.960 the journey through because it was full of fighting. 00:17:35.099 --> 00:17:37.960 The feud. Alex juggles. Put two farmers in a 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:40.420 room, you get an argument. Put wealthy breeders 00:17:40.420 --> 00:17:43.509 in a room, you get a war. The feud was between 00:17:43.509 --> 00:17:46.890 the Shannery faction, the Boston group, and a 00:17:46.890 --> 00:17:49.869 man named Thomas E. Whiting. What were they fighting 00:17:49.869 --> 00:17:52.809 about? Something big, I assume? Purity. And color. 00:17:53.009 --> 00:17:56.140 The flashpoint was a bull named Elswell. He was 00:17:56.140 --> 00:17:58.519 a great bull, but he had a black face with a 00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:00.619 white blaze. Which looks perfectly normal to 00:18:00.619 --> 00:18:04.119 us. To us, yes. But Chinnery and the early purists 00:18:04.119 --> 00:18:06.759 believed that a true Dutch cow should have a 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:09.259 white face or specific markings. They thought 00:18:09.259 --> 00:18:11.759 the black face indicated mongrel blood, maybe 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:14.400 a cross with some other European breed. They 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:16.640 were obsessed with purity. And so they refused 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:19.279 to register him. They locked him out. And Whiting, 00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:21.440 who owned the bull's genetics, went nuclear. 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:24.279 He accused them of being an exclusive club protecting 00:18:24.279 --> 00:18:26.700 their own investments. So he started his own 00:18:26.700 --> 00:18:29.059 herd book, the Dutch Friesian herd book versus 00:18:29.059 --> 00:18:31.500 the Holstein herd book. So now we have two rival 00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:33.900 organizations registering the same breed of cattle, 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.200 calling them different names, and writing nasty 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:38.180 editorials about each other in the farm papers. 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:40.720 Oh, the editorials were vicious. They called 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:44.119 each other frauds, swindlers. The stress was 00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:46.079 immense. Thomas Whiting actually died at age 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:48.859 50, and people at the time really believed the 00:18:48.859 --> 00:18:52.200 stress of the herd book war killed him. He worked 00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:54.500 himself to death trying to prove his cows were 00:18:54.500 --> 00:18:56.559 legitimate. But you mentioned something interesting 00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:00.500 in our prep. This war, as toxic as it was, might 00:19:00.500 --> 00:19:03.170 have actually helped the breed. Absolutely. Think 00:19:03.170 --> 00:19:06.470 about modern media. Controversy sells. The Great 00:19:06.470 --> 00:19:09.130 Cattle War was front page news in the agricultural 00:19:09.130 --> 00:19:12.150 press. Farmers who had never heard of a Holstein 00:19:12.150 --> 00:19:15.369 cow were now reading about this drama every week. 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:17.829 It was free marketing? It was huge. It put the 00:19:17.829 --> 00:19:19.650 black and white cow on the map because everyone 00:19:19.650 --> 00:19:21.890 wanted to see what all the fuss was about. No 00:19:21.890 --> 00:19:24.650 such thing as bad publicity. Right. And eventually 00:19:24.650 --> 00:19:27.630 they sorted it out. Exactly. Cooler heads prevailed. 00:19:27.710 --> 00:19:29.950 They realized that fighting was bad for business. 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:33.579 In 1885, they merged the two associations to 00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:36.319 form the Holstein -Friesian Association of America. 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:38.259 That's why the name is hyphenated. It was a peace 00:19:38.259 --> 00:19:40.420 treaty. While the men were fighting, the cows 00:19:40.420 --> 00:19:43.000 were working. We need to talk about the records. 00:19:43.799 --> 00:19:46.380 Legitimacy isn't just about herd books. It's 00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:48.940 about what hits the pail. Miller understood this 00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:51.740 better than anyone. He put his cow dowager on 00:19:51.740 --> 00:19:55.220 test. In 1871, she completed the first official 00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:59.940 annual milk record in the United States. 12 ,681 00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:03.500 pounds in 365 days. Again, for the modern ear, 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:06.079 12 ,000 pounds sounds like a cull cow. Right. 00:20:06.490 --> 00:20:09.309 But the average cow in 1871 was giving maybe 00:20:09.309 --> 00:20:12.170 4 ,000 pounds, if you were lucky. Dowager was 00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:14.789 a super cow. She proved that these animals had 00:20:14.789 --> 00:20:17.309 persistence. They didn't just milk hard for three 00:20:17.309 --> 00:20:19.410 months and dry off. They milked all year. And 00:20:19.410 --> 00:20:21.190 then Smiths and Powell pushed it even further 00:20:21.190 --> 00:20:24.309 with Clothilde. Clothilde was a monster. In 1885, 00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:28.250 she made 26 ,021 pounds. That is a respectable 00:20:28.250 --> 00:20:31.450 record today for a low -input herd. In 1885, 00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:33.029 it was science fiction. People didn't believe 00:20:33.029 --> 00:20:35.549 it was biologically possible. Before we get to 00:20:35.549 --> 00:20:37.130 the big showdown, I want to touch on the human 00:20:37.130 --> 00:20:39.210 side again. Amidst the feuds and the records, 00:20:39.369 --> 00:20:41.750 there's a story about names. The Nanny Smith 00:20:41.750 --> 00:20:44.349 story. It's a small detail, but it shows the 00:20:44.349 --> 00:20:46.589 heart behind the business. I love this story. 00:20:46.849 --> 00:20:49.470 So Garrett Smith Miller is in Holland, walking 00:20:49.470 --> 00:20:51.470 the polders, looking for cows. He's with his 00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:54.279 brother. A Dutch farmer waves them down. The 00:20:54.279 --> 00:20:56.839 farmer's name is Gerrit Smit, S -M -I -T. So 00:20:56.839 --> 00:20:58.859 you have Gerrit Smit Miller meeting Gerrit Smit. 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:01.160 Two Gerrits, and they start talking probably 00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:03.599 through a translator or broken English -Dutch, 00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:05.660 and they realize they have more in common. The 00:21:05.660 --> 00:21:08.759 Dutch farmer asks about Miller's family. Miller 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:10.819 mentions his grandmother and sister are named 00:21:10.819 --> 00:21:14.519 Anne. The Dutch farmer's face lights up. He says, 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:17.559 my little daughter is named Annecy. That shared 00:21:17.559 --> 00:21:19.799 connection across the ocean. It broke down the 00:21:19.799 --> 00:21:22.180 barrier. The Dutch farmer decided to sell Miller 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:23.940 a heifer he was planning to keep for himself. 00:21:24.299 --> 00:21:26.700 And when Miller asked what to name her in the 00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:29.200 American herd book, the farmer said, name her 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.700 after my daughter. So she was registered as Nanny 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:33.839 Smith. That's wonderful. It just reminds you 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:36.000 that this trade wasn't just cold commerce. It 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:38.500 was people connecting with people over a shared 00:21:38.500 --> 00:21:42.140 love of the animal. I love that. Okay, let's 00:21:42.140 --> 00:21:44.839 move to the main event. The breakthrough. If 00:21:44.839 --> 00:21:47.279 this were a sports movie, this is the championship 00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:50.950 game. Madison Square Garden. Yeah. 1887. The 00:21:50.950 --> 00:21:54.670 Dairy Show of 1887. This was the moment the Holstein 00:21:54.670 --> 00:21:57.410 had to prove she wasn't just a water cow. Explain 00:21:57.410 --> 00:21:59.829 the water cow insult. What did that mean? The 00:21:59.829 --> 00:22:02.009 criticism from the Jersey and Guernsey breeders 00:22:02.009 --> 00:22:04.450 was that Holsteins gave a lot of milk, but it 00:22:04.450 --> 00:22:07.309 was blue, thin, and had no fat. They called it 00:22:07.309 --> 00:22:10.910 skim milk on tap. At the time, butterfat was 00:22:10.910 --> 00:22:13.609 where the money was. The Jersey was the undisputed 00:22:13.609 --> 00:22:15.640 queen. And the Jersey breeders were arrogant 00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:18.339 about it. Unbelievably arrogant. The president 00:22:18.339 --> 00:22:20.259 of the American Jersey Cattle Club, Frederick 00:22:20.259 --> 00:22:23.079 Bronson, was so sure his cows would win the butter 00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:25.960 test at the show that he commissioned a silver 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:29.859 trophy worth $500. And he had a Jersey cow engraved 00:22:29.859 --> 00:22:32.180 on it before the competition started. That is 00:22:32.180 --> 00:22:34.319 just asking for bad karma. It is the ultimate 00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:37.480 jinx. So the test begins. Now, the butter test 00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:39.859 back then wasn't a lab test. They literally took 00:22:39.859 --> 00:22:42.809 the milk from each cow, skimmed the cream. churned 00:22:42.809 --> 00:22:45.109 it into butter right there at the show, and weighed 00:22:45.109 --> 00:22:48.769 the butter. It was a 24 -hour churn test. So 00:22:48.769 --> 00:22:51.710 it's manual, it's messy, and it's public. And 00:22:51.710 --> 00:22:54.329 the Holsteins, led by Smiths and Powell's cow 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:57.730 Clothilde, crushed it. They produced more butter 00:22:57.730 --> 00:23:00.109 than the Jerseys. Not just more milk, more actual 00:23:00.109 --> 00:23:02.250 butter. The silence from the Jersey camp must 00:23:02.250 --> 00:23:04.319 have been deafening. The Holstein breeders went 00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:06.960 wild. They had beaten the establishment at their 00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:09.740 own game. It proved that the Holstein was a dual 00:23:09.740 --> 00:23:13.319 -purpose dairy cow volume and D solids. That 00:23:13.319 --> 00:23:15.900 victory at Madison Square Garden really signaled 00:23:15.900 --> 00:23:18.079 the changing of the guard. The Jersey Reign was 00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:21.220 ending. The Holstein era was beginning. And right 00:23:21.220 --> 00:23:23.740 around this time, our blind friend Henry Stevens 00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:27.420 makes the gamble of his life. He does. The year 00:23:27.420 --> 00:23:31.029 is 1891. Stevens is fully blind now. But he hears 00:23:31.029 --> 00:23:33.309 about a dispersal sale. He goes in and pays $6 00:23:33.309 --> 00:23:36.190 ,000 for six head of cattle. That is an astronomical 00:23:36.190 --> 00:23:38.089 amount of money for that time. It was everything 00:23:38.089 --> 00:23:41.190 he had and more. But in that group was a deckhole 00:23:41.190 --> 00:23:43.630 second. He had felt her. He knew she was the 00:23:43.630 --> 00:23:45.970 future. And that gamble paid off in a way that 00:23:45.970 --> 00:23:49.150 changed history. In 1912, a cow from his breeding 00:23:49.150 --> 00:23:51.630 program, Pontiac Clothilde de Coltecanteble, 00:23:51.769 --> 00:23:54.029 became the first cow of any breed to produce 00:23:54.029 --> 00:23:56.549 1 ,000 pounds of butterfat in a year. The blind 00:23:56.549 --> 00:23:58.859 man saw the furthest. He really did. He bred 00:23:58.859 --> 00:24:01.660 the first 1 ,000 pound fat cow by touch. It's 00:24:01.660 --> 00:24:04.460 just an unbelievable achievement. But as with 00:24:04.460 --> 00:24:08.099 all things, time marches on. The ripple effect 00:24:08.099 --> 00:24:11.039 brings us to the end of these men's lives. And 00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:13.420 sadly, it wasn't a happy ending for all of them. 00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:17.460 No. The era ended in fire and decline. Fire was 00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:20.059 the scourge of the time. The Stevens barns at 00:24:20.059 --> 00:24:22.519 Maplewood burned. The Smith's and Powell empire 00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:24.920 collapsed when the car replaced the whore. Remember, 00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:27.460 they bred carriage horses too, and that market 00:24:27.460 --> 00:24:30.099 evaporated overnight. In Miller. The reformer. 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.240 Miller held on the longest. He became the grand 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:36.000 old man of the breed. But in 1936, tragedy struck. 00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:38.630 The Peterborough Mansion house, the home where 00:24:38.630 --> 00:24:40.410 the abolitionists met, where the history happened, 00:24:40.630 --> 00:24:43.289 caught fire. It burned to the ground. Oh no. 00:24:43.450 --> 00:24:46.089 Miller was 91 years old. Watching his ancestral 00:24:46.089 --> 00:24:48.910 home burn broke his spirit. He died a year later 00:24:48.910 --> 00:24:51.289 and his herd was dispersed. It's a sad end to 00:24:51.289 --> 00:24:54.130 the men. But the genetics. The genetics are immortal. 00:24:54.450 --> 00:24:56.289 That is the beautiful part. The men are gone, 00:24:56.329 --> 00:24:58.650 but the cows are still here. The legacy lives 00:24:58.650 --> 00:25:00.829 on in every barn. Let's look at the numbers. 00:25:01.009 --> 00:25:03.269 16 generations later, what does that actually 00:25:03.269 --> 00:25:06.339 mean? If you pull up the pedigree of a modern 00:25:06.339 --> 00:25:09.660 legend, let's say Glenridge Citation Roxy, the 00:25:09.660 --> 00:25:12.160 queen of the breed, if you trace her maternal 00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:15.400 line back generation by generation, you go back 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.880 16 steps and you land squarely on cows imported 00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:22.299 by Miller and Stevens. You land on Otile and 00:25:22.299 --> 00:25:25.140 Ruka. It's a direct line. A direct unbroken line. 00:25:25.299 --> 00:25:27.980 And there is a specific stat about Nicole Second, 00:25:28.259 --> 00:25:30.910 the cow Stevens bought. What's that? Researchers 00:25:30.910 --> 00:25:33.890 analyzed the pedigree of the entire North American 00:25:33.890 --> 00:25:37.089 Holstein population. They found that decol genetics 00:25:37.089 --> 00:25:40.109 contribute to something like 7 % of the genes 00:25:40.109 --> 00:25:43.230 in the entire modern herd. 7 % from one cow? 00:25:43.490 --> 00:25:45.970 She is everywhere. Every time you milk a Holstein, 00:25:46.170 --> 00:25:48.230 you are milking a little bit of decol second. 00:25:48.410 --> 00:25:50.049 That leads us to the Farmer Translator moment. 00:25:50.289 --> 00:25:52.130 Yeah. Because this isn't just cool history. It 00:25:52.130 --> 00:25:54.269 has... implications for us today, specifically 00:25:54.269 --> 00:25:56.589 regarding inbreeding. Right. We talk about the 00:25:56.589 --> 00:25:59.009 foundation, but foundation implies a narrowing, 00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:01.690 a bottleneck. All of our modern cattle come from 00:26:01.690 --> 00:26:03.549 this very small group of animals that survive 00:26:03.549 --> 00:26:05.849 the rinderpest, the snowstorms, and the impulse 00:26:05.849 --> 00:26:08.549 buys. So when farmers see inbreeding coefficients 00:26:08.549 --> 00:26:13.200 creeping up, 8%, 10%. It's not just because they 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:15.380 used a popular bull last year. It's baked into 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:18.519 the cake. We are recycling the same genetics 00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:21.380 that Miller and Stevens selected 150 years ago. 00:26:21.799 --> 00:26:24.920 This is why outcrossed genetics are so hard to 00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:28.359 find. There are no new lines. We are just shuffling 00:26:28.359 --> 00:26:31.039 the deck that these four men handed us. It also 00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:33.740 explains why our genomic reliability is so high. 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:37.460 Exactly. The reason we can predict a bull's performance 00:26:37.460 --> 00:26:41.259 with 80 % accuracy is because the gene pool is 00:26:41.259 --> 00:26:44.240 consistent. We are statistically relying on the 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.319 lack of variation. We are mining the gold that 00:26:47.319 --> 00:26:49.359 they buried in the ground. That is a profound 00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:51.279 way to look at it. We are the stewards of their 00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:54.240 selection decisions. We are. If Chenery had bought 00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:56.700 a different cow off that rum ship, or if Stevens 00:26:56.700 --> 00:26:58.740 had preferred thick -hided cows, our industry 00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:00.579 would look completely different today. The cow 00:27:00.579 --> 00:27:02.940 effect. Like the butterfly effect. Exactly. The 00:27:02.940 --> 00:27:04.819 cow effect. I like that. All right, let's wrap 00:27:04.819 --> 00:27:06.660 this up. We have a listener on a tractor right 00:27:06.660 --> 00:27:09.259 now, maybe chopping corn, maybe scraping the 00:27:09.259 --> 00:27:11.319 barn. What are the takeaways? What's the one 00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:12.980 thing they should sit with? I think there are 00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:16.680 four things. First, measure what matters. Miller 00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:20.079 invented the system that became DHIA. He weighed 00:27:20.079 --> 00:27:22.700 the milk. If you don't track it, you can't improve 00:27:22.700 --> 00:27:25.599 it. That is the golden rule of dairy. Amen to 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:30.019 that. Second, intuition plus data. Be like Henry 00:27:30.019 --> 00:27:32.819 Stevens. We love genomics, but don't become a 00:27:32.819 --> 00:27:35.519 paper breeder. Put your hands on the cow. Look 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:38.200 at her. The magic happens when you combine the 00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:40.900 data with the art of stockmanship. Balance is 00:27:40.900 --> 00:27:43.799 key. Third, resilience. This is the big one. 00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:46.660 Channery's herd died, and he ordered more the 00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:49.619 same day. Muller walked cows through a blizzard. 00:27:50.019 --> 00:27:52.400 Farming is hard. It has always been hard. But 00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:55.140 the industry is built on stubborn optimism. If 00:27:55.140 --> 00:27:57.480 you are having a bad day, remember Channery standing 00:27:57.480 --> 00:27:59.819 in that empty barn and refusing to quit. That's 00:27:59.819 --> 00:28:02.700 a powerful thought. And the last one. Build families. 00:28:03.019 --> 00:28:05.480 These men didn't chase freaks or one -hit wonders. 00:28:05.640 --> 00:28:08.180 They built maternal lines. The big four. They 00:28:08.180 --> 00:28:10.299 stacked generations of quality. That is how you 00:28:10.299 --> 00:28:12.359 build a herd that lasts. Focus on consistent 00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:14.920 cow families. Consistent cow families. That never 00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:17.200 goes out of style. Never. There is a physical 00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:19.500 reminder of this story, isn't there? A place 00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:22.640 people can see. There is. If you ever find yourself 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:25.680 near Peterborough, New York, Drive down Oxbow 00:28:25.680 --> 00:28:28.940 Road. There's a bronze plaque on a boulder. It's 00:28:28.940 --> 00:28:31.259 called the Plymouth Rock of the Holstein Breed. 00:28:31.539 --> 00:28:33.980 It marks the pasture where Miller's first cows 00:28:33.980 --> 00:28:36.940 grazed. It's sacred ground for us. I think we 00:28:36.940 --> 00:28:39.099 need to plan a bullvine road trip. I'll drive. 00:28:39.380 --> 00:28:41.180 That's another story from the Bullvine Podcast. 00:28:41.539 --> 00:28:43.180 These are the people who built the future of 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:45.599 dairy by looking at the past. And next time you 00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:47.839 look at a black and white cow, just take a second. 00:28:48.019 --> 00:28:49.920 Remember the blind man who felt her potential 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.519 before anyone else saw it? Find more stories 00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:56.839 at www .thebullvine .com. Subscribe so you don't 00:28:56.839 --> 00:28:59.400 miss the next deep dive. Thanks for listening. 00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:35.309 Stay safe out there. Tell the tale, tell the 00:29:35.309 --> 00:29:39.369 tale, the Beaumont legends live here.