The Pkoper Beef Type. 25 



iners in that contest, a man who was himself a practical, experi- 

 enced stockman, and one of the keenest and most intelligent 

 judges of our country, said that the young men whom he had 

 examined were capable of going into the best herds and flocks 

 of the country and selecting the best animals and giving a 

 sounder and more intelligent reason for sustaining their judg- 

 ment than nine-tenths of the owners or proprietors of these herds 

 and flocks. You may ask why this was the case and why those 

 boys were able to do such creditable work? I reply that it was 

 simply by reason of thorough study and intelligent methods of 

 investigation, by a careful and critical faculty of observing live- 

 stock which comes from analyzing the merits of animals point 

 by point and considering the reasons and their logical results. 



A brief consideration of the qualities of practical excellence in 

 beef cattle may well engage the attention of the breeder and 

 feeder. A topic of this character is too often regarded as of 

 interest only to the professional exhibitor or the lecture-room 

 instructor and student. But every successful breeder must al- 

 ways be a student, for the first essential in successful breeding 

 is a clear conception of what constitutes a good animal and of 

 all the characteristics that go to make up real excellence in a 

 herd. It is said that the late renowned Amos Cruickshank, the 

 founder of the great Scotch tribe of Shorthorns, was often seen 

 by the side of the leading sale rings of Great Britain intently 

 studying every animal that came into the ring, and his minute 

 knowledge of all the animals shown was the marvel of those who 

 chanced to converse with him about them afterwards. While 

 the methods of the justly celebrated Eobert Bakewell, the first 

 great improver of live-stock, were largely secret, it is known that 

 he was not only an exceedingly close student of living forms, but 

 that his rooms were also full of models and parts of domestic 

 animals that he had carefully dissected and preserved for future 

 reference. In his work of selection and improvement he imparted 

 to the Leicester sheep such a remarkable aptitude to take on 

 flesh that this quality remains, even to the present day, a charac- 



