490 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



ranging from four and one-half to six cents per pound and paying him a 

 reasonably fair return for food and care? It is the "scrub" cattle that 

 affect these farmers most directly. Their chief foes are in their own barn- 

 yards. 



While we do all we can to secure needed State and National legislation 

 to remedy the exactions of strong and greedy corporations, such legislation 

 is likely to be delayed. I suggest that a little personal legislation may 

 secure more immediate relief. If the farmers wili pass a bill to banish the 

 "scrubs" from their premises, to keep fewer cattle and care for them better, 

 and give it immediate effect, they will secure some relief through their own 

 efforts in a field where they have full control — relief that may perchance be 

 long deferred through, oftentimes, the slow and mazy uncertainties of legal 

 enactment. 



THE SHORTHORN FOR THE AVERAGE FARMER. 



BY HON. WM. BALL, OF HAMBURG. 



Portions of an Address Before the Farmers' Institute, at Flint, January 30, 1889. 



* * * The scrub (the curse of the country) which disgraces the fields 

 and barn-yards of the farmers of this, as well as other counties in this State, 

 should be banished from the land as speedily as possible. It has no place or 

 right on a well regulated and well conducted farm or among the good stock 

 of the country. If those who grow this kind of stock will keep a debit and 

 credit account of the cost of raising, and the returns they bring when dis- 

 posed of, the balance will will be found on the wrong side of the ledger. No 

 one can say truthfully, at the present time, when nearly all classes of 

 improved stock are so cheap, that he is unable to own them. If he keeps 

 stock at all he cannot afford to own any other, for the scrub is a source of 

 loss to the owner, to say nothing of the humiliation of having them around. 

 Good registered stock of all kinds is so cheap that it can be bought and bred 

 and a profit made from either beef, milk, mutton, wool or pork, to say 

 nothing of the advance on a good stock animal. The farmer raises grain 

 and breeds stock for the profit he thinks or knows there is in it. The most 

 profitable cow for the farmer to raise is the cow that will give the greatest 

 amount of good, rich milk, and when through bringing calves and giving 

 milk, will most readily make the largest amount of good beef in the shortest 

 space of time, and with the least expense. The ideal cow should be what is 

 termed the general purpose cow. Beef is the final end of all cattle, and the 

 block is the umpire as to quality and quantity. The pail and the churn 

 must settle the dairy qualities of all cattle. As the farm requires both the 

 dairy and beef qualities, the best combination of the two requirements must 

 necessarily be the best animal for the average farmer. 



From long observation and considerable experience, I have no hesitancy 

 in giving the post of honor to the Shorthorn. I make no war on any other 

 breed. All are good, and in the direction of beef alone, the Hereford, so 

 plentiful in this locality, is a strong rival. Not every Shorthorn has the 

 milking quality as well developed as it should be, for beef, of late years, has 

 been the main consideration, but more recently the dairy capabilities of cat- 

 tle have had a good deal of consideration and the Shorthorn has been found 

 capable of filling the requirements in a large degree, and where any especial 



