214 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



arguments and fears, and proposes to buy a few pure breds and 

 become a breeder. I do not pose as a know-it-all, and do not wish 

 to appear presumptuous. I wish simply to make a few sugges- 

 tions from my experience "on the road," during which I have visited 

 several hundred herds of pure bred stock. I hope some of them 

 may be of value and that the breeders will take them for what they 

 are worth. 



My first suggestion to the beginner, whether he is breeding 

 cattle, hogs, sheep, horses or other stock, would be : start with 

 good animals. Start right at the top today — and keep going higher. 

 This is possible. You can commence with good ones just as easy 

 as with poor animals. If you start your herd with the other fel- 

 low's culls, just because they don't cost much, you are handicapping 

 yourself. You are not getting a "start," but are really buying 

 something that will hinder you. If you commence that way you 

 will never have anything to sell except "culls," and you can't sell 

 them except to some one else who knows as little as you did when 

 you began. You can "breed up," of course, but it will take a long 

 time. You will be ten or twenty years that way in securing what 

 you might have had at the beginning, and it's the exceptional breed- 

 er who "breeds up" his herd without buying something better than 

 he already has. It's not only quicker and easier to start right up at 

 the top, but it's more profitable, and there's more satisfaction in 

 having as good stock as anybody else has. 



Start your herd with as much uniformity of type and individu- 

 ality as you can secure. That generally means, just as truly, a uni- 

 formity of pedigree. Visit as many good herds as possible. Visit 

 the big live stock shows. Study the animals and select a type that 

 suits you, and stick to it. Your herd will always look better and 

 the produce will sell better. Don't have a miscellaneous collection 

 of different types or too many families. 



One good breeder recently told me if he were again a beginner 

 he would secure for his breeding herd females all sired by the same 

 bull. He did not mention any particular sire and did not mean 

 any certain one, but he meant in that way to secure his brood cows 

 all of a particular and individual uniformity. Some sires do not 

 breed uniformly, it is true, and the buyer should be careful in 

 that regard. My friend reached that conclusion after ten years of 

 experience trying to "breed up,' discarding culls and making sub- 

 sequent and wiser purchases. He has succeeded, finally, and now 

 has a fine herd, but at a loss of ten years of time, and has just now 



