THIRD ANNUAL TEAR BOOK — PART XI. 687 



for $6,000, he was converted. Western breeders did recognize the merit 

 and were willing to pay the price for it. 



At the fat stock show a year ago, the Angus were in the lead — this 

 year the Herefords. Next year we look for the Short-horns to have their 

 innings. Sickness and death prevented the load prepared by Henry 

 Browner from being exhibited. They were sold six weeks later, then 

 overripe, and lacked but three-tenths of one per cent of dressing equal net 

 to gross with the prize load of Herefords which were taken at their best. 

 Capable cattle buyers at the yards thought this load would have been a 

 very close competition for the prize. At the Edinburg exhibit the Short- 

 horn cows averaged 1,760 pounds, and the largest one weighed 2,280. 

 Hundreds of cows supply that city with milk and the Short-horns are con- 

 sidered the most profitable, for they not only make good milkers but their 

 large well rounded carcasses sell well for beef. 



Better blood is the demand of the times. An Idaho rancher wrote 

 asking a Hereford man the price of seven of his animals. On getting a 

 reply he wrote back: "Can't afford; 'twould take forty-five of my cattle 

 to buy them; pure bloods are for the rich." "Get some pure bloods and 

 you'll soon be rich was the retort." 



Now we cannot all own Dale, whose symmetry it is said is perfected 

 by a silver plate in his back; we cannot all be Robbins and take in two 

 years, $12,000 in prizes; we may not be able to pay $9,100 for a single 

 Doddie Polled Angus, but Mitchell county has a number of farmers who 

 can afford and ought to have $1,000 in a single animal. Who will be the 

 first to give us an up-to-date herd of cattle, that in a few years will put 

 us on a par with any county in the state? 



The outlook for horse industry is brightening. Praise, gratitude ana 

 honor should be bestowed upon the enterprising, far-sighted farmers, who 

 are risking from $2,000 to $3,000 in a single horse. May they reap the 

 profit they so richly deserve. It is said "he who makes two blades of 

 grass grow where only one grew formerly is a benefactor of mankind." 

 How much more truly may this be said of him who doubles or quadruples 

 the value of any of our domestic animals. And that is not impossible — 

 sometimes it seems as if it will be a necessity. 



One problem that confront us today is our high priced land. When 

 farm sells at from $50 to $90 per acre we cannot farm as did our fathers 

 on their ten shilling land. Plans must be laid so as to get all possible out 

 of each acre yet leave it no less productive. Our yields per acre are in- 

 creasing but our average is still entirely too low. In this line as in many 

 others we are being helped and encouraged by our experiment station. 

 They do have variety and they get yields. Our station produced seventy- 

 four bushels of barley per acre, three times the average for the state. 

 Their wheat also yielded thrice the state's average. 



There is so much in the know how. I have been told that probably 

 the fattest steer in Chicago last December, was a grade Short-horn from 

 Iowa and that ninety days before the show, his owner was offered $600 

 for him. He was fat but not symmetrically fat. The finishing had been 

 improperly done. The feeder didn't know how. Hence the animal was 



