FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 133 



from this is, that you shall so cultivate and underdrain your soil, that 

 when 3^ou sow your crop early in the spring, the first plant growth may 

 be deep and strong, and then you will get a good harvest, no matter 

 whether you get any rain or not. We are not dependent on the clouds 

 to give us rain. Mother Earth is all steaming with moisture, all the 

 time. 



PRACTICAL METHODS IN STOCK BREEDING. 



HON. WM. BALL, HAMBURGH. 



With other business men, the farmer and stock breeder is obliged to be 

 considerate and conservative if anything like success can be looked for 

 in his farming and breeding operations. The cost of his plant, the 

 amount invested in the form of stock, tools, and necessary equipment, 

 are all matters of the utmost importance when looked for results are to 

 be considered. 



The amount required for labor, the cost of living, the keeping of stock, 

 must all be taken into consideration. Tlio speculative value in gilt edged 

 pedigrees for thoroughbred stock, unless backed up by positive good 

 results, has become a thing of the past. The real value of an animal 

 today is not whether it is a Bates, Cruickshank, Duke, or Duchess when 

 Shorthorns are considered, but with an excellent pedigree, how much 

 substantial merit there is in the animal when the dairy or the butcher's 

 block shall be used as the test of value. The excitement produced by 

 the performances of the Annes of St. Lambert, or of the remarkable val- 

 ues contained in Stoke Pogis' veins or his descendants has given way to 

 that more practical view that remarkable production has been dependent 

 upon skillful feeding and proper environments as well as that contained 

 in the blood of the animals. The fact has become apparent to practical 

 farmers that a few highly bred and highly fed animals do not represent 

 the practical values in the breed when brought to the test of actual 

 results in the hands of the ordinary careful breeder and feeder. 



THE BATTLE OF THE BREEDS. 



The thinking farmer is studying the problem of probable profits in 

 stock breeding. The battle of the breeds has been fought so far as the 

 peculiar merits of the breeds were concerned. The results of the fight 

 between the beef breeds have been of intense interest. One year the 

 Red, White and Roan have been crowned with the belt of superiority, 

 while the White Face was a sure winner the next, the Doddy coming in 

 for renown the next year; and so the battle has waged — no one breed a 

 sure conqueror, but all having the elements of superior merits. 



At the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, the Shorthorn 

 not only won laurels as a beef producing animal, but was high in the scale 

 as a dairy cow, proving beyond a doubt that, as a practical farmer's cow, 

 she has no equal. The proof of this statement lies in the facts revealed 

 wherever and whenever a test in two directions has been made. The 

 persent tendency in stock breeding is in the direction of practical 

 results. The pedigree mania has received a black eye from the fact that 



