132 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



understand how a farmer can fail to realize this fact and continue 

 to hang on to the common stock, too often found on a great many 

 of our farm-',. 



There is no greater ambition in the world than to be of good 

 to our fellow men. This ambition may be realized through the 

 production of improved live stock, because upon this, depends the 

 economical production of the very necessities of life. 



The breeding and feeding of live stock has a refining influence 

 over man, and develops within him the highest traits of character. 

 In him you have a public spirited man, who is alive to better farms, 

 better buildings, better roads, and better social conditions. No 

 business or profession calls for such a wide knowledge of existing 

 conditions for its successful management as does the management 

 of an improved stock farm. To maintain or improve his flocks and 

 herds a man has not only to deal with living organisms, which are 

 subject to the most subtle influences in the world, but he must also 

 have the highest ideals of symmetry in animal form. Many men 

 are unable to grasp these great principles of animal improvement. 

 An English writer once said that there were a hundred men in 

 England fit to become prime-ministers where there is only one fit 

 to breed short-horn cattle. 



As to the future of live stock improvement, I see nothing in the 

 horizon to hinder or make afraid. In our pure-bred record associ- 

 ations, we find that the volume of business each year is greater than 

 the year before. We find also that the demand for pure-bred cattle 

 is spreading over all sections of the country, and this demand will 

 increase each year as the country grows older, and the fertility of 

 the soil becomes more or less depleted. Last August while in Colo- 

 rado, I attended a convention of the Colorado State Commercial 

 Association in session at Greely, and had the pleasure of listening 

 to a very interesting address on "Getting Stockmen for Colorado 

 Farms." In his address the speaker made the statement that in 

 every section of the state, even in the fertile, irrigated valleys, the 

 great problem was : How to maintain fertility of the soil. This 

 question of course brought out a storm of protests from the real 

 estate men present, but it was verified by Dean Carlye of the Colo- 

 rado Agriculture College, who was present at the time. Dean 

 Caryle said that the address just delivered was the best he had 

 ever heard on conditions in Colorado, and that the college had re- 

 ceived a request from every irrigated section of the state to send 



