THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART XI. 68 ( J 



say that in the hands of the average and especially the young farmer the 

 daily paper is about the worst thing he can get hold of. If all the agri- 

 cultural news and useful information to the farmer that is published in 

 the average daily papers for one year could be squeezed out you would not 

 get enough to drown a cow louse in. But on the other hand you will find 

 everything that has a tendency to draw the farmer's attention away from 

 what he should read and study. They will give you an account of all the 

 robberies, murders, suicides and hold-ups from Maine to California and 

 if some lawyer or politician should get sick or die you will see his picture 

 and they will give you an account of his life and actually make it appear 

 as though he really was the only man that we had any use for. But if the 

 greatest breeder of improved stock on earth should get sick, die, be born, 

 get married or anything else happen to him you would never find it out 

 through the daily papers. And if he should die they would never tell you 

 whether we had had any use for him or not, when the truth of it is that 

 the breeders of improved stock have done more to enhance the value of 

 this country than any other class of people. You must all admit that here 

 I am laboring under extreme disadvantages for the reason that the class 

 of farmers that is here present are really not the class that require such 

 talking to. But it is that class that is at home today, chopping wood or 

 hauling barley that we really want to get at, but we cannot reach them. 

 They are at home with the mistaken idea that our institute is a humbug 

 and that if there is anything going on that they should know the daily 

 papers will tell them about it. I presume there are reporters here to pick 

 out a word here and there and make it as short as they dare and still have 

 the honor of reporting the institute. Then they will publish no agricul- 

 tural information until our next institute. 



I am not here to tell you how to keep boys on a farm but I do want 

 to say that if you have a boy or several of them and want them to be good 

 farmers I would advise you to have your daily papers stopped and in place 

 of them have your name put on the experiment station bulletin mailing 

 list and subscribe for the Breeders Gazette and one or two good farm 

 papers. Then instead of reading of the rascality going on, instead of read- 

 ing the dirty side of our country, read the clean, progressive and indus- 

 trious side and study and learn how to breed, feed and take care of stock. 

 And I will guarantee that the scrub cattle that do not pay for what they 

 eat, that are seen on so many farms in Scott county will soon be replaced 

 by better bred and more profitable cattle. 



Now it is impossible for us all to have pure bred cattle, but it is not 

 impossible for us all to have high grade well bred cattle. We can get them 

 by using pure bred sires. But you will say that we cannot all have pure 

 bred sires for the reason that some do not have the money to pay for one 

 and besides there are not enough of them for us all. As for those that 

 do not have the money to pay for one, they need him all the more. The 

 more he is in debt the more important it is that he should have one. I 

 do not know of an investment or improvement that a farmer can make that 

 will bring him better returns than the use of a good pure bred sire. It 

 is almost impossible to lay too much stress on the sire. He is always 50 

 per cent of the herd. If you have one or two inferior cows it is only their 



