252 ANNUAL RErORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



year after year in Chicago at the great show (car load lots), have 

 not been ])ure blood cattle, only a few groiijts in them have been 

 l)ure blood; largely they have been high grade cattle, very often the 

 crossing of two dilTerent breeds, particularly with reference to the 

 Shorthorns and Angus,- the crossing of the one with the other. We 

 have all looked as if they belonged to the one breed and were not 

 a few crossings of the two breeds. And so I say, breed to a good 

 sire to get a good foundation. Select a sire of a particular type, 

 or that character of animal, and then build up your herd with that 

 foundation and go on to success. 



Now I think we might turn our attention to the handling of our 

 herd along beef lines. There are many who are discontented with 

 dairy cattle on account of the labor required. It is that constant 

 every day work tliat never lets up, seven days in the week, morning, 

 noon and night. These cows must be attended to. The man who 

 does that must be there all the time. I don't want you to feel 

 for a moment that if you are to succeed in beef cattle that you can 

 do so and not give it personal attention. It will require personal 

 attention Just as the dairy requires to make it a success on the part 

 of the same competent man. But the attention is not so intense 

 because following up the line which I have mapped out briefly, 

 there are seaBons when we have but little work to do with them. 

 For the next three or four months the man who is in the beef cattle 

 busincts, through the grazing period, will find himself able to take 

 considerable rest while he can see the results going on. He does 

 not have to be there morning and night as promptly as the cow is. 

 And therefore many men are preferring to take up the beef in- 

 dustry simply because there is more of a rest connected with the 

 beef industry than with the dairy industry. He has his rest days 

 and lax months which seem never to come in the dairy business. 



It is desirable, if possible, in beef cattle if you are going to breed 

 your own calves, to have them born as nearly as possible at the same 

 period of the year in order that you may have them all about the 

 same age and the same size. It is just as easy to handle ten, fifteen 

 or twenty calves as it is to tend to two or three, and if you have them 

 all together it is a very simple matter to feed, just as with dairy 

 calves. On the other hand if you want to keep some cows for milk- 

 ing, it makes a flood and then again you are without it. You will 

 find that objection. If you are. not going to use any of the milk 

 it will pay you to have one or two dairy cows that you use for 

 your family dairy and you have them the year through. I am go- 

 ing to advocate as largely as possible to let these little fellows nurse 

 their dams. T have seen fairly good calves raised by hand and some 

 fed with separator milk but never as good ones as with the other 

 process. It is more expensive to raise them with their mothers. 

 Indeed you have to figure closely if you can figure out how to keep 

 a cow a year to grow a calf; but all that you shall have to find out 

 in the growing of beef just as in the dairy, that there are many 

 little profits, little turns of business that cannot easily be put down 

 on paper, that you cannot readily see. There are many things on 

 your farm that may be consumed to advantage by your beef cattle 

 and hogs. So I say I think the better calves are produced by let 

 ting them run with their dams, and if you have good cows many 

 will raise two calvas.- I have known of farmers in the pure blood 



