590 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



impovement of all the daughters accumulated through a series of years 

 means a remarkable increase in the efficiency of the herd. 



It is the common experience of all dairymen who have used a really 

 good improved dairy sire that the investment has made them royal 

 r(»turns. The $150 cost price looks "too big" only to the narrow vision 

 that cannot see the natural improvement of the herd certain to follow. 

 Many a dairyman might have reason to say that he cannot afford to pay 

 a big price for a fine cow, but the same argument does not apply at all to 

 the purchase of an improved bull, because the sire's influence spreads so 

 much farther and faster than that of the cow. 



If the heifer calves are to be raised for dairy cows there is absolutely 

 no business or reason on earth for keeping a scrub bull. The dairymen 

 who think there is pay a heavy price annually for maintaining that tradi- 

 tion. The scrub bull is the most expensive and extravagant piece of cattle 

 flesh on any farm. He does not stop at being merely worthless, but will 

 lose the farmer the price of two or three good bulls every year he is kept. 

 The dairyman could not afford to keep a scrub bull if the animal were 

 given to him, if he were paid for boarding the beast and given a premium 

 of $100 per year for using him. The presence of the scrub sire in so many 

 Illinois herds — many times without a single qualification except that he 

 is a male — is an offense and disgrace to the dairy business and a plain 

 advertisement of the dairyman's thoughtless bid for failure. The only 

 thing on earth the scrub sire is good for is sausage, and it is high time 

 that this plain and simple truth was given practical acceptance on every 

 dairy farm. 



By all means get a good dairy sire, if you have to sell two or three cows 

 to do it. The improved sire is without question the most economical 

 investment in any dairy herd. 



THE GENERAL PURPOSE COW. 



C. B. Enowles, La Porte City, Iowa, before Black Hawk County Farmers' 



Institute. 



In approaching a subject like this, "Which is the better for the farmers 

 of this community to breed, the general purpose or the dairy breed of 

 cattle?" one is bound to try to generalize the conditions surrounding the 

 average herd of cattle and their respective owners, all the while contem- 

 plating what is or should be the most profitable purpose for which these 

 cattle are raised and kept. In looking the ground over and reviewing the 

 cow history of this section we find that the larger droves of the past 

 were a very indifferent class indeed of native or "scrub" cattle, as they 

 were termed at times. They were raised mostly for beef, with just 

 enough milking done to supply the table with those things of which milk, 

 butter and cream were the component parts and inspire the barefoot boy 

 with cheeks of tan with a mad desire to enlist or go to sea or some other 

 equally safe and congenial place where the sloppy surroundings of the 

 cow-shed were conspicuous by their absence. And if there is any one 

 thing about the farm that is calculated to make a boy want to turn pirate 



