180 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



ideal dual purpose cow. She is the cow of our forefathers and I would 

 predict in the east and middle west she is the coming cow. We still at 

 this day have such a cow, but there has been of late years a great impetus 

 for beef and her double purpose has been neglected. Tlie quality i? only 

 latent and can be revived with an effort. The American farm needs her. 

 There is a call for the dual purpose cow. There should be some encour- 

 agement in financial returns. 



It might be remembered that the highest cow ever sold was of the 

 family of shorthorns which combined beef and milk to the highest de- 

 gree yet attained. The International at Qiicago offered a large prize this 

 year for the farmers' cow. The dual habit still exists and the cow can be 

 had but her name is not legion. A hundred years ago she was queen of 

 all domestic animals, and history repeats itself and it repeats oftener than 

 every hundred years. Unto man's care the Creator left all domestic an- 

 imals and of all these the cow is queen and the bull is the king. Her care 

 is no mean vocation and her study is elevating. The science of reproduc- 

 tion is as deep a science as that of the planets and the laws of heredity 

 are mysterious. She is a commodity and as other commodities may have 

 ups and downs, but every year the well bred cow attaches herself closely 

 to advanced civilization. I have not even named my favorite breed but 

 she must be of good scale and a good udder and should have good hair 

 and we are on a safe road to improvement. 



Reflect for one moment how important is the American cow to the 

 American people. A recent authority stated that if the cow trade could 

 drop out, the railings on the railroads west of Lincoln, Nebraska, would 

 be covered with rust. Take away the cow from Chicago and the Union 

 stock yards would half decay and grass would grow in the streets. 



Take away the cow from the two metropolitan cities of our own 

 State, Kansas City on the west and St. Louis on the east, and in the stock 

 yards district, the birds would build nests in the weeds that would grow 

 at the parlor window. Here in Springfield if the cow and her products 

 could be withdrawn one year, one would stand on the street and wonder 

 what was the matter. Under certain conditions the special dairy cow is 

 the most desired. Under other conditions the exclusive beef animal 

 may best answer the purpose. But there are conditions in which the dual 

 purpose animal far better serves the purpose and these conditions are 

 more than the other two combined. It is a pitiful sight to see on a farm 

 a fine massive cow covered with a wealth of flesh of 1700 pounds followed 

 by a calf almost starved for milk. I have seen high class breeding herds 

 with nearly as many nurse cows as breeding cows. 



Extra conditions may support this but the normal condition and the 

 small farmer cannot maintain them. 



