THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 307 



Some men seem to have formed the idea that the breeding of fine 

 cattle is an easy thing. It is unfortunate that many breeders make no 

 effort to dispel such folly with a prospective buyer on the ground. The 

 sooner men generally know and appreciate that it is no child's play l o 

 breed fine cattle the better, and breeders generally will make no mistake 

 in aiding to establish such principles. 



We have but to look back over the generations of the past and single 

 out here and there a man who has really been a breeder and improver of 

 cattle. Without exception they have been men of rare judgment and in- 

 tellectual attainments. Men who have not gone into the business as a 

 diversion, men strong enough to bear up under discouragement, resource- 

 ful and quick to catch at suggestions of promise. I do not hesitate to saj 

 that these are the men to whom we owe our gratitude for whatever of 

 merit exists in our pure-bred cattle today. These are the men who have 

 during times of depression, saved our herds from utter annihilation; and, 

 fellow breeders, it is to such men as these that we must look for whatever 

 promise of permanency there is in this industry. Fortunate, indeed, is 

 the man having but few cows, who is able to produce animals of outstand- 

 ing merit. The rule is, and ever has been, that the breeding of fine 

 cattle is a thing not to be trifled with, but gone into heart and soul, on 

 a scale large enough to bring results. The dabbler invariably fails. 



A failure in breeding pure-bred stock is very apt to be followed by a 

 lack of confidence in pure-bred animals as a necessary factor in live 

 stock husbandry, a conclusion as unfortunate as it is false. But you say 

 the man who falls short of success in breeding pure-bred stock would 

 fail as a breeder or feeder of market-cattle. This does not necessarily 

 follow. The chances are that when a man fails in the breeding of pure- 

 bred animals, we lose from the live-stock ranks an active man who may 

 have been a success as a breeder and feeder of market-cattle, and as such 

 increase the legitimate and rational demand for pure-bred bulls. Un- 

 doubtedly, we do not all agree as to the legitimate place of pure-bred 

 animals in the live-stock trade of this country. We believe that there is 

 no room for doubt as to the absolute necessity of the introduction of the 

 blood of pure-bred beef-sires into the herds of farm and ranch where the 

 object is the production of prime-beef. 



When we say the .pure-bred beef-sire, we at the same time infer the 

 necessity of good blood being attended by individual merit. Granted that 

 pure bred sire is a necessity, we believe it is equally true that the pure- 

 bred cow is not essential, advisable, or possible as a factor in the pro- 

 duction of the prime steer for the open market. The use of a pure-bred 

 bull on a herd of high-grade cows need not add $2 each to the cost of 

 calves intended as the foundation for prime steers, while if pure-bred 

 cows were to be used, it would increase the cost of each calf $25, at a 

 conservative estimate, or beyond a point which would be profitable to 

 the producer. Looking at the proposition from this standpoint, the case 

 is a clear one that the rational relation of the breeder of pure-bred stock 

 to the feeder is one of furnishing him with pure-bred bulls rather than 



