530 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cows, this is not a matter of so great importance; but even here, unless he 

 is on the range, there is no danger of getting a cow that gives too much 

 milk. 



Who, then, should buy improved live stock for breeding? Every man 

 who is fit to handle them wisely. The breeding interests are not benefited 

 but injured by the purchase of improved cattle by men who are not 

 themselves improved up to the point where they can take care of them. 

 No man, however, who has good grass such as can be grown on land worth 

 from fifty to one hundred dollars an acre should for a single moment be 

 satisfied with scrub or low grade cattle. To be satisfied with this means 

 impoverishment sooner or later. 



No man should be satisfied to buy a poor individual, no matter what 

 its pedigree may be. The condition of the animal is a better testimony 

 to the pedigree than the paper on which it is written. If it has the right 

 breeding and the right care it will be a good individual. If it has the 

 right breeding and not the right care it will not. No matter how good 

 the individual and the care, or how perfect the environment, the animal 

 will not be what it should be unless it has been born right and is 

 descended from good parentage on both sides. 



The high price of land in the corn belt is a most potent and weighty 

 reason for buying the best kind of live stock now offered at public sale. 

 Neither the scrpb nor the low grade sire nor the poorly fed individual, 

 no matter how good its pedigree, will pay interest on these high priced 

 lands. Every animal fit to eat the grass or grains that grow on these 

 high priced lands must be well bred, at least on one side, and then it 

 must have that human environment that will supplement the natural and 

 artificial environment, and thus bring out the latent capacities to their 

 utmost extent. 



Our hogs are pretty well bred up. The same may be said of our sheep. 

 Now may there be "a long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together." 

 to grade up the cattle on these western prairies and thus get full value out 

 of the grains and grasses which we are growing at such a large expendi- 

 ture for high priced machinery and labor. 



OIPROVED STOCK ON $100 LAND. 

 Wallaces' Farmer. 



As land advances in price the kind of live stock that can be kept at a 

 profit becomes a matter for very careful study. When land was worth 

 fifteen to twenty dollars, or when there was free range, it was quite pos- 

 sible to make good money by keeping a cow for the chance of a calf. The 

 man who kept a scrub bull might then be regarded as unwise, but not alto- 

 gether foolish. 



As land advances in price, even though there should be a correspond- 

 ing advance in the price of beef, it becomes important to use only the 

 machine for converting the grains and grasses into beef that will do it to 

 the best advantage. The high grade animal or the pure bred may not 

 make any more pounds of beef per ton of corn or hay; for the making 

 of the pounds depends not upon breeding, but upon the capacity of diges- 



