LIVE STOCK breeders' ASSOCIATION.. 12/ 



grown on ninety-five millions acres of land. To plant this crop requires 

 about fifteen million bushels of seed. The average yield is about twenty- 

 five bushels per acre, but in many places the yield will run fifty lo 

 seventy-five and even one hundred bushels per acre. Now there is not 

 the least doubt that the corn crop could be increased twenty-five per 

 cent by the use of high-grade pedigreed seed. The growing of this seed 

 as a specialty is one opening for the right kind of young men. Tlie 

 time will come when farmers will find it to their interest to pay two 

 dollars or more a bushel for high-grade seed rather than attempt to grow 

 it themselves. The breeding of this seed is, a science intO' which every 

 young man shouhl look, and if he finds out what there is to do and does 

 it right he will have no trouble in disposing of his product. We ought 

 to have two million bushels of this kind of seed available to-day. As a 

 matter of fact, we do not have any to speak of, although the work has 

 already bedn taken up by a few energetic people. Do you corn men 

 believe that you can increase the yield 25 per cent over the mongrel 

 seed we cattle men and farmers are using? If you believe it, can you 

 demonstrate it with facts? Then if you can we are very foolish to use 

 the corn crib mongrel seed. But how slow we are to take hold. Just 

 as slow as you corn seed growers are to take hold of our cattle. We 

 know that a thoroughbred sire will add to the value of a scrub herd fully 

 25 per cent. 



In the same connection Prof. Galloway says: "If we need this 

 sort of work for corn we need it much more for cotton ; the great staple 

 crop of the South, which annually brings to the country five hundred 

 millions of dollars. The twenty-five million acres devoted to cotton re- 

 quires twenty-five million bushels of seed. The breeding of cotton seed 

 for special purposes, for special localities and for special needs has 

 hardly begun." But if the cottoni seed man could increase the yield of 

 cotton, would he be a public benefactor? This year the yield is in ex- 

 cess of the demand, and the burning baled cotton at Fort Gaines, Geor- 

 gia, to place cotton on a paying basis proves that the man that makes 

 two bales grow where one grew before is only adding fuel to the flame.. 

 The same means to enhance the price of thoroughbred sires has been 

 advocated by many stock breeders, by sending all but the best to the 

 butcher's block, but this always seemed to me like killing the goose that 

 laid the golden egg. The farmer and the ranchman are the ones to 

 wdiom we are to look for a market. We can afford a sacrifice in selling 

 to them, for once buying a thoroughbred they become permanent cus- 

 tomers and want better ones as they become educated. High-priced 

 lands and high-priced feeds call for a better class of stock. Brother 

 breeders, prices are low, but let us stand bv our colors and raise the best 



