192 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



Source of sires. Suitable sires can be had of any of the rep- 

 utable breeders that advertise in our best journals, and at fair 

 prices. They will cost more than they are worth for veal, of 

 course, but it should be remembered that the buyer is paying 

 not so much for the animal as for the long line of breeding that 

 he represents. Consult again the law of ancestral heredity in 

 Chapter XII and understand fully why it is that a well-bred 



Fig. 31. Common rough (butcher) steer, $5.80 per hundredweight (1910) ; 

 usual price, $4.25 per hundredweight 



After Mumford 



male, if only a few weeks old, is worth many times his ordinary 

 market value and infinitely more than any scrub, no matter what 

 his size, color, or other quality, which, like beauty, is in his case 

 only " skin deep." 



Herd improvement and breed improvement. Farmers are far 

 more apt to practice crossing than grading, though it is vastly 

 more expensive, and, as commonly practiced, leads to nothing, for 



