4 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



Skillful feeding may grow and fatten these animals at a fair profit. These moderate- sized 

 cattle, well fattened, are prime in quality, and will bring a full price. This will also improve 

 the dairy system of the Eastern States, by utilizing all their products; and, besides producing 

 much of the beef required in the local markets, will raise all the heifers necessary to replenish 

 the dairy herd. This is matter of the greatest importance to the success of any proper sys 

 tem of dairying, as purchasing cows in a miscellaneous market is incompatible with the selec 

 tion of an extra herd. This can be done only with home breeding, or the selection of a tried 

 cow here and there. 



We do not intend to say that in all parts of the Eastern States only the small breeds of 

 cows are desirable for quite the reverse is the case but that these States furnish a large 

 amount of land where these breeds are most appropriate. But when we reach the great 

 Western plains, where the natural grasses grow in abundance, and where grain is produced 

 with much less labor, here is the natural home of beef growing, and here the grandest ani 

 mals are required to produce it most profitably. Here the mature bovine animals should 

 weigh from 1,400 to 2,000 Ibs., and be able to reach this weight at two and a half to three 

 years old. Here your quiet, docile, large-eating and large-producing cow is the one required, 

 since the largest machines pay best when you have the material to run them. That breed which 

 will produce the largest amount of beef, milk, butter, and cheese in a given time, and from a 

 given amount of food, is the one required. It has come to be acknowledged as a fact beyond 

 reasonable controversy, that large cattle, of equally early maturity, produce the largest result 

 in beef from a given amount of food; and, if of a milking breed, also the largest amount of 

 milk from a given amount of food. 



In England beef growing is never carried on singly, but milk is counted on as carefully 

 as the meat; and, after a century of selection for the large milk dairies near London, and 

 other large towns, the high-cross Short- Horn cow is used as the milk producer. This blood 

 is there found satisfactory in milk production, as it is everywhere for meat production. 



The Holland or Dutch cattle have a weight nearly equal to the Short-Horn, and have the 

 great merit of having the milk secretions well developed and permanently fixed in the race. 

 They feed into large, compact carcasses of beef, but are not as fine-boned and smooth as the 

 Short-Horn, and many suppose them to have been the origin of Short-Horn blood. They are 

 a fixed race, and transmit with certainty their characteristics to their progeny, and may, 

 therefore, be used to improve the. common stock for milk and beef. They are very large 

 milk yielders, and will be of much advantage in building up the Western beef and dairy 

 interest. 



The Hereford is another large beef breed, having in this particular great merit; their 

 advocates regarding them as fully the equal of the Short-Horn in early maturity, and as 

 economical feeders for beef. As milk producers they have as yet little general reputation, 

 either in this country or Europe. We have known a few fine milkers, which renders it highly 

 probable that they may yet become developed in this particular, and that their general char 

 acter in this respect may be owing to the fact that they have been kept mostly in grazing, and 

 not in dairy districts. They possess remarkably fixed characteristics of race. No race is 

 more prepotent; and when their milk yield shall be increased, they must be a most important 

 addition to the beef and dairy breeds for the development of the West. The hardiness of 

 this breed, and its adaptation to grazing districts, are unquestioned. 



The West has not only abundance of grasses, but also abundance of grain, both for the 

 production of beef and milk. This gives it all the resources requisite to the most assured 

 success in the double enterprise.&quot; 



In the selection of breeds for any purpose whatever, their qualities or characteristics 

 should not only be considered, but the object to be secured in the enterprise, and the adapta 

 tion of the location to the attainment of the most successful results. 



