136 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



necessity of breeding better stock? We must weed out the scrubs, get a 

 thoroughbred sire and breed up. The sire is the most important part of 

 your herd; they are the progenitor of so many cows in one season, while 

 the cow can only present her qualities to one calf during the season. 



I was speaking one time in the State of New York, speaking on this 

 very subject and a gentleman sitting in the rear of the hall came for- 

 ward when I got through talking and said to me, I live eight miles 

 away, but I want you to go home with me to dinner. He said he had 

 eight two-yearold heifers that had become mothers, and he said farming 

 didn't pay. He said thirty years before that his mother said it was 

 dangerous to be alone, and he took to himself a wife, and his lather 

 was so pleased that he purchased for him a farm and paid two-thirds 

 down and put the other third on a mortgage. Since that time he had 

 never been able to pay anything but the' interest. He had raised a 

 family, they had all gone to the city and he and his wife were alone, and 

 he said farming didn't pay. 



I drove up there and he let the animals out into the yard, and I 

 looked them over carefully. I said to him: "What did you breed these 

 calves from?" "Oh," he said, "I have got a dandy sire; he has got a 

 pedigree that reaches over into the old world." I looked this sire over 

 carefully. I examined his mammillary veins and could not find them. I 

 said: "All he can do is to reproduce himself, and from nothing, nothing 

 comes." That was a thoroughbred scrub. That farmer in the afternoon 

 got up in the audience and said he never knew the sire had mammillary 

 veins. Been in the dairy business all those years and never knew that. 



If the farmer is not in love with the dairy cow, then for God's sake 

 quit the business, for he will never succeed. If it is the pride of your 

 heart to feed your cattle carefully and watch their growth; in that way 

 you will succeed. 



Here is the sire; his head is symmetrical, broad through the eyes, 

 ribs well sprung. We say we sell the scrubs, we purchase a thoroughbred 

 sire. I never was over thirty miles from home before we purchased 

 thoroughbred cattle. 



I myself was a scrub from the start — just simply ate, and slept, and 

 snored, and repeated it. With all these characteristics the animal must 

 be chock full of constitutional vigor; then he has the power to impress 

 his qualities upon his progeny. Now, we say we have got that sire home. 

 What does that mean? That means better care, better thought than you 

 have ever given one before, because that is worth something; you put 

 more value on it. We are not apt to take any great care of anything we 

 put no value on. That is the trouble with real estate to-day. We think 

 so little of what we have got. You want to think a good deal of what 

 you have got yourself; if you don't, nobody else will think much of it. 

 You take a man who does not think much of himself, then everybody else 

 despises him. That is too bad. 



After you fetch that animal home and care for him during the winter 

 you await the result. By and by a calf is dropped. The boys come to the 



