28 ELEMENTARY AGRICULTUEE 



country. Farmers who desire to form such an asso- 

 ciation should write to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, who will send a man to assist in forming the 

 organization. 



Uses Made of Beef Cattle. It is said that every 

 grown person in the United States eats, on an aver- 

 age, one hundred and fifty pounds of meat in a year. 

 The greater part of this is furnished by the great 

 herds pastured on the Western plains. Leather for 

 many purposes is made from the hides, and butter- 

 ine is a product of the fat or tallow of beef. Buttons 

 are made from the bones; combs, from the bones and 

 hoofs; and glue, from the sinews, bones, and hide 

 trimmings. 



How to Get Good Stock. The cheapest way for a 

 farmer to build up a fine herd of either dairy or 

 beef .cattle is to save only the calves whose father 

 or sire is a pure-bred animal. (Fig. 17.) There is 

 a true saying among stock farmers that ^'The sire 

 is half the herd.^' The way to improve a scrub 

 herd is to obtain a pure-bred sire. The first calves 

 are half pure. When these calves become cows and 

 mothers, their calves are three-fourths pure stock, 

 and so on. Scrub cattle have no place in the fields 

 of a good farmer. 



QUESTIONS 



(1) If men had to choose between having either horses 

 or cattle alone, which should they choose and why? (2) 

 How do you think butter making was discovered? 



(3) How do you think the first plow was invented? 



(4) Name the chief dairy types? 



