LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 127 



THE VALUE OF IMPROVED BREEDS OF STOCK. 



BY W. E. HALE. 

 [Read at Eaton Rapids Institute.! 



lu this busy age competition is the life of all kinds of business. With 

 modern improvements, the facilities for cheap production are the astonishment 

 of the world. At present among no class of producers is the result of lively 

 competition, in narrowing down the margin of profits, more fully felt than 

 among the farmers. The cheapness with which crops and animals may be 

 grown at the west, has and is making it necessary for the man who would 

 thrive at the occupation of farming, not merely to use his muscles, but his 

 brain to study methods and plans by which he may reach the largest and best 

 results at the lowest possible cost; for cost and value have just as much sig- 

 nificance in this as in any other branch of business. 



In the system of mi.xed farming as practiced in this State, stock forms the 

 most important factor. We must have cows for milk and butter, swine for 

 meat, sheep for wool and mutton, and horses for labor. Whatever the breed 

 or quality of the animals which the farmer raises, they consume a certain 

 amount of food, also require a certain amount of care and attention, and the 

 return is usually commensurate with the breed and the manner with which 

 they are kept. 



One of the primary objects of stock raising, which makes it essential to 

 the farmer is the turning of the coarser products of the farm into money or 

 its equivalent, and at the same time restoring to the soil all the elements of 

 fertility that be can to supply the place of those taken away by constant 

 cropping. How is this improvement to be made? In the past the different 

 classes of stock have been improved only as they followed improved agricult- 

 ure. When ''intensive" farming" has been practiced, there has been the 

 greatest improvement in all kinds of stock. 



To-day we have several fixed breeds in each of the different classes of stock, 

 and it is by means of tlie pure breeds that we may hope to make the greatest 

 improvement in the sliortest time. If they will not do this, they fail in the 

 purpose for which they were bred. They would be better adapted for show 

 than for adding material wealth to the country. The greatest improvement 

 will be in the greatest adaptation to the uses we have for them. 



The farmer who believes that any kind of stock is good enough, incurs no 

 expense or labor to improve it, and pays no attention to the regularity in 

 feeding or the adaptability of the food to the animals, is the one who always 

 contends that stock raising is unprofitable business. But these ideas so prev- 

 alent in former years are gradually disappearing. The pure bred male- is now 

 wanted upon the remotest ranch as well as upon the cultivated farm, as men 

 of all stations have learned that the native has not the elements that make 

 improvement possible, and that the better the stock the better we can 

 afford to keep them. It probably would not be profitable for all to raise 

 thoroughbred stock. We must then improve what we have by crossing with 

 some of the pure breeds continuously, and never allowing them to go back. 

 After fixing in our mind the breed best adapted to our purpose, we should 

 look for individual merit in the animal we seek to breed from. As the great 

 mass of our common stock has been bred by a chance system, its improve- 



