No. 5. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 409 



It is the man wlio drives his business that makes a success of it, 

 whether it be breeding cattle or anything else. 



There is another thing that comes in breeding cattle or anything 

 else, and that is right stock. See that you have the right stock. It 

 is just as true of the 3'oung man starting out in business as it is 

 of breeding cattle or anything else; you must have the right start — 

 have the right starting point. When a young man gets down it is 

 mighty hard to get the upward start again. It is easy enough to trip 

 and fall down, but hard to get up again. It is the same in breeding 

 cattle. It is easy enough to get the wrong start, but mighty hard 

 to build up again after you have started wrong. I am thankful that 

 I had the right start. I did not have the advantages of the young 

 men of today; I did not go to an agTicultural school, but I did read 

 the papers, and came to see where good animals were an advantage. 

 Don't think it is necessary to go out and look for a good record, or 

 pay a high price, but look for a good constitution and good blood. 

 If you don't get a good constitution, you get a wrong start. 



A dairy cow is only a machine to consume the roughage on our 

 farms, and turn it into food fit for the human family, and you want 

 a good, strong machine to stand up under the strain for it is a tre- 

 mendous strain to take this roughage and convert it into food 

 fit for human kind. And at the present price of feed 

 and labor you must have a good, strong machine to make it pay. This 

 was brought home to me in the State of Iowa when I was traveling 

 there. This State is passing rapidly from a beef state to a dairy 

 state, and they are trying to breed dairy animals on a beef strain. 

 The State of Iowa is also a very high-j)riced state, so far as the price 

 of land is concerned, and I don't see how any young man can suc- 

 ceed there, taking the high-priced farms and trying to do what they 

 are doing there now. Of course, the man who has his land can work 

 it with these animals, but the young man just starting out must 

 have better animals in order to keep his land. 



I was told by the Dairy Commissioner that one-third of the ani- 

 mals pay for their keep; one-third do not pay for their keep, and 

 the other third make a profit. So it is necessary to have better ani 

 mals, and the people are beginning to realize it more and more. 



I know it is getting on towards dinner time, and perhaps I had 

 better not talk much ; it is hard for people to listen when they are 

 hungry. I could talk for a long time about the advantages of the 

 Holstein cow; it is the thing for which I came down. 



In breeding cattle we are doing something that will influence our 

 children and our grand-children, and what I want to impress on you 

 is that we should stop breeding only for present dollars and cents, 

 and breed something that we can hand down to our children and their 

 children — cattle they need not be ashamed of and we need not be 

 ashamed to pass on. Better not hand down so many dollars. I be- 

 lieve that the man who has these two ends in view will succeed better 

 than the man who has not one of tliem in view. 



In New York State a noted herd was sold not long ago. They were 

 of a fine strain, but it was freely said that the man who bought them 

 would realize his mistake. They brought enormous prices, but they 

 were inbred to such a degree that they had lost their vigor. 



