166 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



enough that they are interested in live stock improvement, and are 

 familiar with, and are practicing good methods of live stock breeding. 

 The second class, comprising by far the great majority, is the one in 

 whose hands the inferior stocks are to be found. Because this last 

 class comprises such an overwhelming majority of stock owners, and 

 because it produces nearly all the animals and animal products mar- 

 keted, its influence in determining the character and reputation of 

 Michigan meat and milk products is very far reaching. It is in the 

 hands of some of this class that the scrub and animal of badly mixed 

 breeding are to be found. After the few breeders of pure bred animals 

 have expended large sums of money for good foundation stocks, and 

 offered good young pure bred males at moderate prices, it cannot be 

 denied that they are extremely slow of sale in Michigan. The ordinary 

 producer of meats and milk (not breeder), seems determined not to 

 pay more than about meat prices for males to infuse improved blood 

 in his herd, and the breeder cannot make a living producing them at 

 such prices. Failing to secure improved males at these low prices, many 

 producers fall back on the grade or even the scrub, and frequently 

 combine with this in-breeding, especially where the males are chosen 

 within the herd. The greatest, and most pressing needs of today, in 

 live stock improvement, are more breeders, more good males, and more 

 men willing to pay remunerative prices for them, and cease admixing 

 blood, and using grade and scrub sires. 



INFERIORITY OP THE COMMON STOCKS. 



The chief fault of the common cattle found in Michigan today, is 

 their lack of quality and uniformity; this is not due so much to the 

 lack of infusion of good blood, as to the indiscriminate admixture of 

 the blood of breeds of both beef and dairy types. It is not necessary 

 for us to attempt to present and establish proof of this assertion, as 

 every live stock producer can secure abundant evidence for himself in 

 a short time, by simply exercising the faculty of observation. In trav- 

 eling about the state by wagon road or rail, note the number of animals 

 in each herd seen, also the variation in type, form, and more particu- 

 larly, color. Except for the herds of the few growers of pure bred, 

 or high grade cattle, the common bunches will be found to include a 

 great variety of color and types. In some herds red, white, black, 

 brindle, and all conceivable combinations of these colors are to be 

 found; at the same time some individuals will conform in a measure 

 to strictly beef form, others quite markedly to dairy form, with all 

 gradations between these two. The indications of blood, as seen in 

 color, will undoubtedly attract the attention of the casual observer 

 more readily than other features. In other words, the presence and 

 admixture of so many colors in common herds indicates that Short- 

 horn, Holstein, Jersey and less frequently Hereford and Ayrshire blood 

 has been freely admixed in the state. The seriousness of this lack of 

 uniformity in breeding, quality, color, form, etc., is not fully appre- 

 ciated. For the past ten or twelve years, with one or -two exceptions, 

 the Chicago market has been topped by a certain breed of cattle sold 

 in car load lots. The reasons for this are found in the word uniformity. 

 They have been uniform in size, color, form, finish, and quality; in 



