EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 167 



fact, as much alike as so many peas; you see one and you see them 

 all. This prime requisite of uniformity can never be secured through 

 mixed breeding. The man who offers for sale nineteen good steers and 

 one inferior one bearing undesirable color, is at a great disadvantage; 

 the scrub steer is ever under the nose of the prospective purchaser, and 

 offers him a strong pretext for lowering his bid. 



A large percentage of the best cattle fed in Michigan today, by good 

 feeders, are secured from without the state, at western stockyards; the 

 feeders of these cattle claim that it is difficult to secure feeding cattle 

 of good quality and uniformity at home; one has to purchase the culls 

 along with the good ones in order to get any. Close inspection of con- 

 signments of cattle from this state is not necessary to convince one of 

 their lack of breeding; the drover who picks up a few market cattle 

 here and there', until a load or two is made up for shipment, is the man 

 who gathers together the motley combination representing the large 

 aggregate; the man who breeds, buys and feeds a good car or more of 

 steers usually markets them himself. 



SOME CAUSES OP LACK OF BREEDING IN MICHIGAN CATTLE. 



The indiscriminate admixture of the blood of the various breeds 

 has been one of the most direct causes of the production of inferior 

 stocks. This has not been restricted to the breeds within the beef 

 and dairy classes, but includes admixture of the blood of the two 

 classes. With the rise in prices of dairy products, the common cows 

 have been bred to dairy bulls; with depreciated values for dairy pro- 

 ducts, these same cows and their female progeny have been bred back 

 to beef sires, and so on. On the other hand, there are plenty of in- 

 stances where herds possessed of cows of a small type, producing a 

 small flow of rich milk, have been bred to a bull of a larger breed noted 

 for heavy milk flow, and vice versa. There are too many animals in our 

 yards today saved from bulls bred to females for no other purpose 

 than to ''freshen them again." 



The lack of good breeding among our cattle today is not due to lack 

 'of introduction of good blood at an early date. Shorthorns were 

 brought into Michigan in 1843, Galloways in 1854, Herefords in 1864, 

 and Aberdeen Angus in 1884. Holsteins and Jerseys were also intro- 

 duced at comparatively early dates. The records of Michigan fair asso- 

 ciations, from the time of the organization of the State Fair in 1849, 

 would seem to indicate that unusual activity in pedigreed live stock 

 breeding was manifested in the earlier days but this seems to have 

 been confined to the so-called breeders. 



In the report of Edward W. Perry, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 

 to Hon. N. G. Coleman, Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1887, the state 

 ment is made to the effect that in 1884, only 138,500 head, or 19 per 

 cent of the cattle of Michigan at that time, possessed blood of improved^ 

 or pure bred animals. 



Another potent force tending toward the production of inferior cattle 

 in this state is found in the too prevalent use of grade and scrub bulls. 

 According to the last state census there were 27,800 bulls one year and 

 over in Michigan in 1904, valued at |805,932.00, or an average of |28.90 

 each. This same report gives the number of three-year old steers in 



