250 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



been breeding cattle all their lives who are not able to distinguish 

 why one steer is particularly better than another. A number of 

 years ago an old gentleman in my own neighborhood, a very inti- 

 mate friend of mine, had a bunch of very good steers and we were 

 feeding a bunch of steers. vA buyer came along, and olTered us a 

 cent a pound more than he would ofl'er him. The old gentleman 

 came to my house and looked over the cattle and said he could not 

 see why that man would give us a cent more than him. lie said, 

 "Mine look just as good as yours and as fat." Probably they did. 

 He had not learned to distinguish the type that the markets de- 

 mand. And so I say to you that if you are going to start in the 

 beef cattle business, one of the first things you will have to do is to 

 get the type clearl}' fixed in your mind, just as the man who takes 

 a block of marble to cut out a figure has the ideal in his mind all 

 the time. He has seen in the block of marble just what it is to be 

 like when finished. And so the man must see in the animal which 

 he is going to form into beef just what character of animal this is 

 going to be when finished, and when finished it must be of the type 

 that is in demand, that the people want. Now I know of no better 

 way, if you are not familiar with this type, than to go to the great 

 shows in this countrj^, such as State Fairs and great Beef Shows 

 and study those types. I am not going to say that we are not in 

 danger of overdoing it in following along the lines of certain types. 

 There are men breeding dairy cattle who are perhaps pajang more 

 attention to the type of the animal than to performance, but with 

 beef cattle the finished animal or what he is going to produce in 

 beef, and therefore the type has very much to do with the character 

 of the animal ; so that you will have to have some means to learn 

 the desirable type of the beef animal and then when you have once 

 found out you will have to stick to it. There are so many men 

 all over this country that put one so much in mind of the dog chas- 

 ing the rabbit down a lane. Just about the time the dog gets hold 

 of the rabbit he slips through the fence and the dog has to go 

 to the trouble of jumping over in order to follow the rabbit, and 

 just as he again about catches him, again through the fence he 

 goes. Now there are many men in our country that are playing that 

 same game with beef and dairy cattle. Just about the time they get 

 a good herd of dairy cows and things are beginning to do pretty 

 well, the bottom has dropped out of their market and it looks from 

 the other side as if beef is more profitable and so he misses his rab- 

 bit. He jumps over the fence into the beef column and he starts 

 for beef for a while, and when he gets his herd up to the beef stand- 

 ard he finds the beef is not worth very much. Butter is worth thirty 

 to forty cents and beef only $3.00, and he tries to jump over the 

 fence again, and thus he spends his entire life doing that thing. 

 This country is full of men who have spent their lives doing that 

 thing. 



Now life is too short to jump over that fence too often. We can- 

 not afford to do it. Then we have people that have tried to get 

 over the fence by the dairy bull or beef bull. That is one way of get- 

 ting over the fence if you undertake to do it. I can ruin the best 

 dairy herd in the land in less than two crosses with a beef animal. 

 I can do it with one cross ; I can ruin the best beef herd in the land 

 with one cross of the dairy bull. With about three crosses you can 



