390 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Again I believe that if the exhibitor will leave home with the determina- 

 tion to use his judgment unprejudiced and learn to see other cattle as he 

 sees his own (and he is unfit for an exhibitor until he can) the schooling 

 he will receive will more than pay him in qualifying him for the work 

 of breeding cattle. One of necessity must meet many strangers, thereby 

 extending his acquaintance, and usually wider acquaintance means more 

 business. The only way by which we can measure the standard of our 

 cattle is by comparison and I am quite sure there are exhibitors who 

 have not appreciated the merits of their animals until brought to the 

 show. I am quite sure the reverse is true. Some exhibitors have appre- 

 ciated their animals more than anyone else, but such will generally come 

 back better the next year. 



L. McWhorter: Having followed the practice of exhibiting my cattla 

 at home rather than in the show ring during recent years I may not be 

 fully qualified to solve the problem of "to show or not to show." The 

 general public is disposed to judge of the merit or standing of a herd 

 by its winnings in the show ring and its relation to such winners. One 

 may breed and own as good or better cattle than the show ring afford, 

 but it is a problem how to demonstrate the fact to the buying public 

 except through the agency of the show ring. Meritorious animals that 

 have attained the most prominent positions in the shows of the country 

 are those most talked of and best known in live stock circles. The ani- 

 mals that win attain a prominence not otherwise attainable. Campaign- 

 ing a successful show herd is about the shortest route to prominence as 

 a breeder and gives advertising of unquestionable value to the owner of 

 the herd. It is, however, frequently dearly bought. When I look back 

 over the show yard history of Angus cattle in America I cannot but expe- 

 rience pangs 01 regret when I think of the many prominent winners lost 

 to the breed by excessive and long continued fitting for show purposes. 

 A large percentage of the cows become shy breeders, chronic abortus or 

 wholly barren. 



The loss among the bulls is hardly less noticeable. This may be a 

 fault of the present show yard methods and requirements, but we have 

 to take the show yard as we find it. "It is a condition and not a theory," 

 as President Grover Cleveland said, and as such it must be faced by the 

 candidate for show yard honors. To win one must fit and fit heavily. To 

 fit heavily some top cattle will be ruined and lost to the breed. Show 

 yard contests remind me of war. War implies heavy preparation, hard 

 campaigns, strong rivalry and glorious victories. War affords quick 

 opportunities for honor, for glory and for victory and yet war is what 

 John Sherman called it. Its cost is not in money nor in effort, but in the 

 best life-blood of our country, and the same holds true in the show ring 

 contests of the country. They are both probably necessary evils and fre- 

 quently worth the cost. The breeder with a reasonably large breeding 

 herd closely related to the individuals constituting a successful show 

 herd can, I believe, profit by showing them. At the present time fair 



