THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 309 



standpoint of the breeder and feeder of market-cattle, practically every 

 pure-bred bull now produced could be used to advantage. Not so, of 

 course, from the standpoint of the breeder of pure-bred stock. While this 

 is true for the present, the time is surely coming when there will be no 

 market at all for inferior pure-bred bulls even to the producer of market 

 cattle. The sale of a pure-bred bull to a breeder of steers, even if that 

 bull is not one of high individual excellence, is pretty sure to work such 

 improvement in a common herd of cows that the purchaser of the first 

 pure-bred bull is certain to want another and a better one later on. 



Unless we have a smaller per cent of inferior bulls produced in our 

 pure-bred herds in the years to come, we will not have these better bulls 

 to meet the demand of the breeders of market cattle. Certain it is that 

 there ought not to be as large a proportion of inferior bulls produced in 

 our pure-bred herds as there is. 



Let us consider briefly why this is so. First of all, we will agree that 

 no matter how well selected a herd may be, both as to cows and to bulls, 

 and at the same time granting that the herd has been carefully managed 

 as to housing, feed, and the like, there is bound to be, now and again, 

 an inferior bull produced. Second, as long as we have, and we shall 

 always have, men who dabble in the business without experience and 

 judgment sufficient to properly care for their herds, we shall have too 

 many inferior bulls. Third, I might say the most potent factor of all, in- 

 ferior cows breed inferior bulls. This last cause or source, from which 

 spring inferior bulls, is worthy of our most thoughtful consideration. 1 

 say, with Col. Woods and all the rest, let us castrate all unworthy bulls, 

 but let us send the dam of all inferior bulls to the slaughter house before 

 the bull gets large enough to "take by the horns." Granting that one-half 

 of the calves dropped in a herd are bulls, and the other half heifers, there 

 would be approximately the same number of males and females that ough T 

 not to find their way to the breeding-herd. In fact, there ought to be a 

 closer and more discriminating selection of heifers than bulls, as a large 

 per cent of the bulls are expected to produce a worthy representative of 

 the race. 



For sake of argument, however, let us consider that if 33*4 per cent 

 of all the bulls offered for sale in the country should be castrated then 

 we hold that their dams should not be allowed to produce; while the 

 dams of an equal per cent of heifers should not be permitted to go to the 

 bull. This would take care of 66 2-3 per cent of the females bred. We 

 believe there would be little trouble in disposing of the other 33 1-3 per 

 cent of the females annually produced in any breeding-herd. 



Nor need ""he heifers turned to the butcher need be without their 

 value to the breeder. Is it not true that we as breeders should make a 

 more careful study of the carcasses of some of the cattle we are produc 

 ing and calling pure-bred? We think so. Recently we heard one of the 

 best, if not the best, informed men on fat cattle, on both hoof and hook, 

 say that "Our improved breeds of beef-cattle were getting to contain so 

 large a per cent of fat that they were not as profitable from the butcher's 



