No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 251 



get into fairly good results but not the best. Now someone will 

 say, why not select a general purpose animal, so when beef is high 

 you can make beef and when dairy is high you can make butter. 

 Well, you can. Many men do do that but 1 do not recall one who 

 is making a distinct success in either line by doing it. We find 

 men content with small things, with the ordinary things. You 

 have an ordinary animal. You produce only an ordinary amount of 

 butter and only an ordinary quality of beef, but I believe that what 

 is worth doing at all is worth doing well. If 1 want to grow beef 

 1 want to do that, but if 1 want to make butter I want to make 

 butter. When 1 think of the general purpose cow — 1 cannot help 

 but think of two ladders set up in the form of a "V." 1 once saw 

 a trick performer have a little dog put his hind feet on the rung of 

 one ladder and front feet on the rung of the other ladder and thus 

 work up to the top of the ladder, but they don't do that way in the 

 cattle line. They are set up in the form of a "V" and not an animal 

 has been produced that can put its hind feet on the top rung of the 

 one and the front feet on the top rung of the other ladder. W^hen 

 he gets half way he has reached his limit. And that is the way 

 with the general purpose cow. We get half way up the ladder. If 

 content with being half way up the ladder perhaps that is the cow 

 for you to raise. But I do not believe there is a young man in the 

 country who ought to be content with getting half way up any lad- 

 der. This is the age of young men and the young man who is going 

 to succeed must stick to one thing. We cannot make great success 

 and reach prominence in a few years. In many things it takes 

 more than one generation to accomplish satisfactory results, and 

 so I say if you are going into beef cattle go into it as if you mean 

 to stay in it. Of course, if you do not succeed, you can sell out and 

 commence anew in your dairy line if you wish, but don't try crossing 

 back and forth and expect to reach success. 



Kow if you have a class of fairly good beef cows, by purchasing 

 a bull, one with prepotent tendency, especially productive in beef, 

 you might succeed in three generations of cattle life in producing 

 a fair class of beef cattle. I am not here advocating generally the 

 use of pure bred animals for the making of this beef nor of ex- 

 tremely high priced animals. I do contend that the man who is 

 content with any sort of a bull which he may pick up, without know- 

 ing anything of his antecedents, and undertake to build up his herd 

 on that foundation, will probably fail. It will interest you to know 

 that we at our place have been able to sell time and again to men 

 who have not a single pure blooded animal on their farm but simply 

 grading up their herds to a good beef type, numbers of bulls for 

 ^200 to .f300 apiece. Many men come to our place and say, "I can- 

 not afford to buy a high class bull. I am not breeding pure bred 

 stock." I am not so sure about that. The men who have topped 

 the markets year after year in Chicago are not using |50 bulls; 

 and the men who are topping the records along dairy lines are not 

 using inferior bulls. If you are going to succeed with either you 

 will have to have sires that will do what you want them to do, pro- 

 duce the type you want to produce, that are prepotent along their 

 lines. And so T say if you have cows of a fairly good beef type, by 

 buying a bull of that sort and placing in your herd you may be able 

 to produce high class of beef cattle. The cattle which have won 



