6,000 Miles

Artificial impregnation of animals is no novelty. In England, Australia, Russia, the U. S., cows have dropped calves after fertilization by the hand of man. Artificial insemination of mares is a routine demonstration at veterinarians' conventions (TIME, Aug. 24). Safely under way this week, however, was an experiment in man-managed fertilization of cattle which was unique for the 6,000-mile distance between sires and dams.

Argentine cattlemen would like to improve the milk production of their cows by breeding them with high-grade imported bulls. But bulls bought from the U. S. usually succumb to the tick fever now prevalent in Argentina. For the same reason U. S. owners are unwilling to ship their bulls to South America on a loan basis. Owners of the best bulls, in fact, generally refuse to ship their prizes anywhere at all, demand that the cows be brought to them. Nevertheless for many months Argentine cattlemen have had their eyes on two fine Holstein-Friesian bulls at the U. S. Department of Agriculture station in Beltsville, Md.: Chief Piebe Ormsby Burke and Double Gerber Colantha Hero, both renowned for transmitting high milk and butterfat productivity to their female offspring. Last July an attache of the Argentine Embassy in Washington approached Roy Ralph Graves of the Beltsville station, proposed that sperm from the two bulls be bottled and shipped to Argentina.

Mr. Graves turned the problem of preserving the vitality of the sperm during shipment over to his crack veterinarian, Dr. Fred W. Miller. From the bulls Dr. Miller extracted semen containing 1,000,000,000 spermatozoa, mixed the fluid with an equal amount of sugar solution, chilled the tubes to 34DEG F. (spermatozoa kept in warm temperatures lash their tails until they get tired, die). Next he buried the tubes in diatomaceous earth, a good insulator, packaged the whole in a buttermilk container.

Last week the package was hurried by automobile from Beltsville to Washington, put aboard an Eastern Airliner bound for Miami, where it was transferred to the icebox of a Pan American Clipper leaving for Buenos Aires. Late this week, if no accident intervenes, the contents of the tubes were to be instilled in eight pedigreed Argentine cows. If the fertilizations take effect, the calves will be born late in the next Argentine autumn.

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