314 BOARD OF AGKICULTURE. 



men who manage the affairs of the American Short-horn Breeders' Asso- 

 ciation are entirely out of range of criticism in connection with this dem- 

 onstration. It may be understood that they were unwilling participators 

 in the dt'roonstration. There Avere hardly a dozen short-horn cows on 

 earth that had ever been pushed for a week's record, much less for a three 

 months' record. The ability of these cattle in dairy lines was problemat- 

 ical. It had been demonstrated time and again that th* short-horn was a 

 superior beef animal. As an economical machine for the growing of meat 

 of the highest quality the breed stood at the top of the pinnacle and looked 

 around with but few competitors closely in sight. In all places where the 

 short horn cow had been given a show, on the farm and in the hands of 

 the patron of the cheese factory and the creamery, the balance of her credit 

 had always appeared on the right side of her owner's bank account. In 

 the few tilts that she had had at the fairs and in the Columbian Dairy 

 Test her records as a dairy cow were creditable. It stood much above the 

 average of the cattle that the census enumerates as dairy cows. The 

 short-horn managers knew that they represented the best general-purpose 

 cattle thus far exploited. They felt that if there was to be a show of dual- 

 purpose cows at the gi-eat Louisiana Purchase Exposition they should 

 make a showing. Hence they cheerfully appropriated the bag of money 

 necessary to carry out the undertaking. 



"In the work of locating and assembling twenty-five cows at St. Louis 

 everything connected with it was somewhat of a lottery. Records of the 

 abilities of short-horn cows in dairy lines are not available in this coun- 

 try. No owner of short-horn cattle had even considered the propriety of 

 breeding some of his best cows in order that they might produce at about 

 the proper period to participate in this demonstration. But a single cow 

 of the thirty-three short-horns assembled at St. Louis was in the slightest 

 degree acclimated in that latitude. A single Missouri cow, coming, how- 

 ever, fx'om many miles north of St. Louis, was utilized. Some of the 

 cows there assembled were not expected from their previous performance 

 to test out worthy to be classed among the twenty-five. Of the twenty- 

 five cows entered in Class B, in which seventy cows of the four breeds 

 entered, one was entirely overcome by the climatic conditions obtaining 

 and at the end of the first 60 day period this cow was destroyed as it 

 seemed apparent that she would not have vigor sufficient to live out the 

 test. Ttn'o other cows at least were so affected by tlieir environments that 

 they could not do effective work. The short-horn representative in start- 

 ing his twenty-five cows in Class B, which relates to dairying only, not 

 only anticipated possible difficulties such as have already been enumer- 

 ated with reference to three cows, but well knew that some of the lot. 

 under the environments in which we were running, would turn out 

 "quitters" and he was very glad to be able to hope that twenty of his 

 twenty-five cows in this class would turn out creditable dairy records. 



'"What is the result? The records of milk flow of these twenty cows 



