484 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



the standing of the breed in our beef markets today is not what its actual 

 merits entitle it to; and I beg your indulgence while I suggest what seems 

 to me to have contributed largely to this prejudice, and what I would sug- 

 gest in the way of a remedy. Prejudice is very likely to be the child of 

 ignorance. It is the lack of facts that very often leads to erroneous impres- 

 sions, to false conclusions. 



There has been such a demand for your pure bred cattle that only a few 

 have found their way to the shambles, hardly enough to enable the dealers 

 in our principal markets to grade them in value properly; and without 

 knowing how or why, dealers invariably class them as very unsatisfactory 

 animals for the markets. 



Would it not be wise for Holstein-Friesian breeders to weed out more of 

 the animals that are not up to the standard in their herds? More or less 

 calves in all herds should be culled out. Sold as breeders they impair the 

 reputation of the breed, lower the breed standard and the price of individ- 

 uals. It is not good policy, from a financial standpoint. It does not add 

 to the prestige of the breed. 



ADVANCED REGISTRY. 



I think at your last meeting your ^president suggested that it might be 

 wise to adopt a rule providing that no bull calf should be eligible to regis- 

 tration except from a dam eligible to the advanced registry list. He thought 

 it would be of advantage to the individual breeder as well as the association, 

 to largely cut down the registry of bulls. If such a course of procedure were 

 followed in every herd, we could soon place so many animals on the market 

 that whatever of merit they have, as meat producers, would be known, and 

 I am confident that much of this prejudice would be dissipated by a better 

 knowledge of the edible qualities of the beef of this breed. In addition, by 

 such a course, the higher and more valuable qualities of the breed, as dairy 

 animals, would be strengthened. 



This Association is to be congratulated on its action in establishing a sys- 

 tem of advanced registry. You have been the first to take this action, the 

 wisdom of which, in thus uniting well vouched and recorded performance 

 with pedigree, commends itself to every thoughtful breeder. That your 

 laudable example, with more or less modification, will sooner or later be fol- 

 lowed by other cattle breeders' organizations I cannot doubt. 



This is a questioning age. We scan traditions and claims in stock as well 

 as other matters, and unless they are girt about with the facts that appeal to 

 our practical sense we reject them. We do not have as many pedigree wor- 

 shipers as formerly, or at least have wiser ones, and it is a good oraen 

 when breeders insist upon a standard of performance as the truest measure 

 of value. 



Pedigree is only the prophecy, the promise of value in a certain direction. 

 Performance is the prophecy fulfilled, the most indisputable evidence of the 

 ability of the animal to pay in current coin of the realm what is promised in 

 its pedigree. 



