Miscellaneous Papers. 265 



these are two of the important foundation stones upon which 

 he must build. 



If the breeder finds that he has a cow that is practically 

 perfect in all respects save one quality, he mates this animal 

 with one that is exceptionally strong in that quality and by 

 this process of natural selection he ultimately produces the 

 wonders of the bovine world which record his triumph over 

 his ancestors and over the law of variation which constantly 

 tends to undo his work. 



I have in my office a picture of a cow whose maternal qual- 

 ities have been developed to such an extent that her product 

 of milk and butter has reached an abnormal point, and she 

 is credited with a little over 1000 pounds of butter in one 

 year. I have also the portrait of a hog that is so near per- 

 fection and so desirable a type of herd header that he recently 

 sold for more than $5000 and proved a good investment to 

 the purchaser. I have numerous portraits of beef breeds of 

 cattle which have been so developed through selection and 

 breeding that they produce the "baby beef" so much in de- 

 mand at present and for which such ready sale is found. 

 Formerly it was trije that our beef animals had to be fed, or 

 at least grown, to three or four years old before they were 

 in marketable condition. Now eighteen months is about the 

 limit. Our official statistics for the year 1907 show that the 

 total value of live stock in Kansas was $197,250,857, and 

 from this one fact alone, to which we may add the other fact 

 that Kansas is rapidly becoming one of the best-known pure- 

 bred states in the Union, it will be seen that a knowledge of 

 heredity in stock breeding is of vast importance to our people. 

 It is estimated that eighty per cent, of the pure-bred Hereford 

 cattle of the United States are to be found in the territory of 

 which Kansas City is the center. Facts show that other 

 breeds are equally well represented in this region, while 

 northern Kansas and southern Nebraska have become one of 

 the greatest swine-breeding sections of the entire country, 

 and this in spite of the fact that the corn belt was supposed 

 to be the only home of the hog and that its western limits 

 had long been passed by the settlers of that country. 



Within the writer's knowledge there is no scientific fact 

 the application of which to the affairs of daily life has brought 

 more direct or valuable results than those of heredity in live- 

 stock breeding. 



