LIVE STOCK breeders' ASSOCIATION, 185 



different. To me he looks like a strong, sensible man, dressed in a 

 well-fitting suit of good clothing. He sits on the vine-covered porch of his 

 comfortable cottage home, and has in his hand a daily paper. His bill 

 of fare is, this time of the year, Berkshire sausage for breakfast, Short- 

 horn rib roast for dinner and Hereford porterhouse steak for supper. 

 He has roast Mammoth Bronze turkey or Plymouth Rock old hen with 

 dressing for Sunday dinner. His table is supplied with Jersey butter 

 and cream, Holstein cheese, clover honey, made by Italian bees, and 

 grape or current wine on the side. When he drives to town, it is be- 

 hind a thoroughbred team, and he and his family are in a comfortable 

 carriage. That is my notion of a typical Missouri farmer. And when 

 more and more farmers get into the improved stock business, as they 

 will — there is no question of it — they will become even more comfort- 

 able and more thrifty than I have pictured this one. The price of 

 farms in Missouri is getting higher and higher. Farmers from adjoin- 

 ing states, who have sold their land at a long price per acre, come 

 here and buy cheaper land and, making money by the move, have a 

 little surplus which enables them to buy pure-bred stock and conduct 

 their farming on a wider and more profitable basis. Somebody once 

 said that if Missouri were inclosed within a high wall and forced to 

 exist within herself, she could produce everything necessary to sustain 

 her population in comfort and luxury from her own resources, and 

 with no outside help. We Missourians are proud of our State — proud 

 of her resources, proud of her advance in the line of pure-bred stock, 

 and willing and desirous to see the time come when the greater part of 

 her farmers shall go into one or another branch of this excellent busi- 

 ness — breeding pure-bred live stock. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Boles : I was very much interested in that paper, and I will 

 say that I believe in a man making a business of any business that he 

 undertakes. To a beginner in the pure-bred business I will say that it 

 would be best for him to start with a tried animal. Sometimes we get 

 an idea that we want to buy a show animal and sometimes we buy 

 something that is untried. I have always found that it is better for 

 me to buy some old cow rather than some untried heifers. We are not 

 supposed to know all about the pure-bred business when first starting 

 in, and it is because we don't get started right that we become dis- 

 gusted and quit the business so often. I remember my first experience 

 in buying sheep. I went to the St. Louis Fair and I bought three ewe 

 lambs. I made a mistake in the whole business, only one lamb prov- 

 ing a success. The ewe lambs are all right, but I had to wait too long 



