STOCK. 277 



or perpetuating improved breeds of cattle. A little " artificial 

 selection," rigidly enforced, will prove far more effectual. 



The rapid increase of improved stock, and its general accept- 

 ance by farmers for farm use, may have been unwittingly 

 hindered by the advocates of such stock, themselves. It is not 

 difficult to convince an intelligent farmer of the superiority of 

 such stock; and without special reasons to the contrary, he may 

 accept as true the assertion, too often made, that " it costs no 

 more to raise a full blood than a scrub." But when he attempts 

 to purchase thorough-bred animals, with a view to a " new 

 departure " in stock keeping, he finds the price so out of pro- 

 portion to the cost of raising, as previously represented, and 

 so out of proportion, in his estimation, to the intrinsic value 

 of any stock for farm use, that he at once concludes that the 

 whole argument is prompted by self-interest, and that no one 

 can afford to purchase except for speculative purposes. If not 

 given to speculation, he will fall back upon his mongrel breeds, 

 which, if not very profitable, can at least be bought and kept for 

 something less than a small fortune. 



The truth is, it does cost more to raise good animals than to 

 raise poor ones, — more for siring, more for food ; more care, 

 and greater painstaking, — and their advocates might well admit 

 the fact. But the extra cost of raising is not sufficient to warrant 

 the extra prices demanded. The seller's price for a full-blooded 

 Jersey cow, at four years old, will be some four, five or six times 

 the cost of a good native (scrub) cow. At say twelve years 

 old, the native will be worth as much for the butcher as the 

 Jersey ; the former, perhaps, seventy-five per cent, of her first 

 cost, the latter not more than twelve or fifteen per cent. The 

 Jersey cow cannot, then, claim even an equality with the native, 

 in point of profit, unless the net income from her dairy products 

 has exceeded the net income from the similar products of the na- 

 tive cow, by a sum equal to the difference in their first cost, the 

 interest on that difference and the extra cost of keeping, leaving 

 out of the account the calves of both ; because, if fed for the 

 butcher, the calves of the native will be worth quite as much as 

 those of the Jersey ; and if fed for raising and a market, the 

 transaction becomes speculative stock raising, instead of legiti- 

 mate dairying, which we are just now considering. It is not 

 strange, then, that farmers who have had no experience with 



