398 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ticed in preparing" animals for show purposes we regard as hurtful, but if 

 the showing is confined to calves and yearlings or say young animals, we 

 do not regard it as being so hurtful so long as proper methods are applied 

 in feeding. If a large amount of succulent food is provided and not too 

 much grain of a heating character we do not think it so hurtful. As a 

 consequence of this belief after breeding for some years we showed aged 

 herds for some two or three years and after having been victorious, car- 

 rying off first prizes at our various great shows, we retired and have 

 since shown only calves and yearlings when we did show and to this 

 practice we are confining ourselves. Further, we do not take much pride 

 in showing anything except possibly a bull which is not our own produce. 

 Very wealthy men who engage in breeding possibly for pastime as well 

 as the hope that they may do good to the breeds they admire can engage 

 in doing many things which the ordinary farmer-beginner cannot afford 

 to do. For the ordinary beginner we would strongly recommend not 

 going too rashly into showing and in no case to continue to show animals 

 older than say two years, unless the practice of fitting animals for show 

 purposes is largely changed from what is now generally being done. An 

 excessively fat condition we do not believe in as being desirable in ani- 

 mals for breeding purposes. 



S. F. Lockridge: To my mind it is largely a question of conditions. 

 If the object is to bring cattle into public notice as soon as possible, m 

 other words to advertise them, I know of no better or quicker way than 

 by exhibiting them at the fairs and shows of the country. There is proo 

 ably no more effective means of appealing to the judgment of men than 

 by an object lesson. The animal speaks for itself and if it possesses the 

 breed characteristics the breed is then prominently brought into public 

 view in a way to leave the most pleasing and lasting impressions. Many 

 a young man has had his ambition to become a breeder awakened by see- 

 ing the fine specimens of the bovine race on exhibition at his county or 

 state fair and then and there resolved to replace the grade and scrub on 

 his farm with a pure-bred herd. And naturally he seeks the owner of the 

 herd whose cattle won his fancy and from him, in all probability, obtains 

 his first purchases. So too many an older man who has spent his maturer 

 years in the city amassing wealth sauntering through the show grounds 

 sees the same exhibition that awakened interest in the younger man and 

 the sight stirs within him memories of a time when he was a boy on the 

 farm driving home the cows in the gloaming, while all around him the 

 air was vocal with bird and insect life and redolent of summer sweets. So 

 strong is the awakened old love that he never rests until he has reno- 

 vated the old homestead and placed a pure-bred herd amid the scences of 

 his younger years. In either case the owners of pure-bred herds are ben- 

 efited, the breed is benefited, the country is benefited and the fact is em- 

 phasized that it pays to show. 



On the other hand if the only object in exhibiting were the immedi- 

 ate pecuniary benefits to be derived from such display it is questionable 

 taking into account the long course of preparation, the cost and risk of 



