EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 529 



with molasses on the theory that nothing was too good for the preacher, 

 they have built costly buildings without providing for ventilation and 

 sunlight, which are quite as essential to improved stock as improved feed. 

 Improved stock requires good buildings, but housing which does not supply 

 ventilation and sunlight is not good housing, and will sooner or later 

 bring trouble to the man who undertakes to work a miracle by growing 

 improved stock under these conditions. 



The reason why farmers have graded up their hogs until in the corn 

 belt they are almost all practically pure bred is because it has been com- 

 paratively easy to provide the proper feed and proper housing as well as 

 to buj' improved sires. 



Who, then, should buy improved stock? Every man who has improved 

 his pastures and provided proper housing? It is not every man who 

 should buy improved stock for the purpose of establishing a breeding 

 herd, especially in cattle or horses. He should confine his purchases at 

 first to the sire and note the results. If he has provided the proper en- 

 vironment, he will be astonished at the results of the first cross. He will 

 find this first cross capable of very great but not nearly the proportionate 

 improvement. After he has graded up it will be time for him to buy 

 a few pure bred females and lay the foundation of a pure bred herd. 



The breeding interests have suffered great loss in past years by the 

 purchase of pure bred females by farmers who have not yet learned the 

 art of growing high grade stock. These females have degenerated by 

 adapting themselves to the poor environment, and this man, who might 

 possibly have become the continued patron of larger and better breeders, 

 becomes disgusted with the pure bred business and concludes that the 

 grade is the best after all; and so it is for him, but not necessarily for 

 the man who has advanced far enough to furnish pure bred conditions. 



In buying pure bred cattle at the various sales the farmer should use 

 wise discrimination. He should not for a moment allow himself to be 

 infected with the color craze or any other fad. What he is after is qual- 

 ity, which does not lie in the color of the hair, though it should be of the 

 color recognized in the breed. Neither should he allow himself to be 

 infected with the fad of paying big prices for any particular fancy breed- 

 ing that may happen to be the rage. He should by all means buy cattle of 

 sound pedigree. 



Farmers should use wise discrimination in selecting the type of cattle 

 for which their farms are fitted. A great many of our readers are more 

 or less engaged in dairying. In buying Short-horns they should pay 

 especial attention to the milking qualities of the dams and grandams of 

 the sire. It is not easy to get this information except so far as the type 

 of the animal reveals it, which it does not always do with certainty. 

 There is no danger in buying Short-horns of getting sires from cows that 

 give too much milk; the more the better. Neither is there any danger in 

 buying Herefords or any other breed of getting them from cows that are 

 too heavy milkers; the more the better. Breeders of the distinctly beef 

 breeds recognize this by their use of nurse cows, "wet nurses," to push 

 forward their show stock to the greatest possible extent. Where the 

 farmer is buying with the intention of letting the calves run with the 

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