LOGAN — More milk, better meat, lower cost.

That's the potential of cloning animals, and one that is being researched at Utah State University in both Logan and Idaho. Monday afternoon, approximately two dozen legislators, their spouses and legislative staffers got a first-hand look at two cloned (and now pregnant) cows at the university's south farm, which is also the future home of the USU agricultural complex.

For the most part, legislators were in awe of the two cloned cows, one of which was a heifer cloned from a cow that produced almost three times the average amount of milk and another which was from a top-ranked jersey.

House Minority Whip Pat Jones, D-Salt Lake, said that if cloning animals could become successful, the possibilities for food production were impressive.

"What they could do is find a way to get more milk at cheaper costs," Jones said. "It's like hybrid vegetables."

Legislators were also not morally opposed to the cloning, as long as the research stayed with animals.

"I would never support cloning humans," Jones said. "But if (animal cloning) is done in the proper way — and they seem to be doing it properly — I think it's fine."

Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, said that "there's no moral issue with cows because we eat them." Additionally, from what he was told, cloning animals and cloning humans are pretty much two separate technologies and not something being researched.

Another surprise for Bramble was that the clones were not exact replications.

"I thought they were carbon copies," he said.

The cloned cows were shown during a presentation Monday by USU administrators about their future agricultural complex, which the Legislature appropriated $5 million to help build last year. It was one of many presentations made to various groups of legislators during their two-day trip to northern Utah, which continues Tuesday and culminates with an evening Town Hall meeting at the Eccles Theater in downtown Logan. Over 70 legislators have made the journey to Northern Utah, where they participated in one of five different tours throughout the day. Among the many topics covered were transportation needs in the Box Elder and Cache Counties, the exploding Hispanic population"s impact on local schools, and the Utah Festival Opera"s children program. They also attended a "working lunch" in Brigham City, where they heard presentations about topics like redevelopment areas and law enforcement grants. After more than nine hours of tours and presentations, they spent the evening getting a preview of the Festival of the American West in Logan.