TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 127 



cattle for feeding purposes, although as a general rule, it pays 

 best to feed high-class cattle that will sell at the top of the mar- 

 ket, or near the top, when finished. Breeders of cattle are 

 confronted with no such problem as to what to aim for in breed- 

 ing; they should always try to breed the best. Breeding herds 

 are not so easily or quickly changed to suit fluctuations in market 

 demands as are cattle in the feeder's hands; hence, breeders 

 abide by the general rule that greatest returns come from the 

 production of the highest grade of cattle. 



When the object of the breeder is to produce calves to be 

 fed for the market, the cows in the herd are purebred only in 

 rare instances. Purebred cattle are not so numerous as to per- 

 mit their widespread use, and it is impracticable to advise that 

 purebred cows shall constitute the common herds of the country, 

 nor would it be possible to bring about that condition for many 

 years to come. By all means, however, the cows in such herds 

 should be high grades of some one of the beef breeds. 



At this point some definition of terms is necessary. A 

 purebred animal is a member of some breed, and is registered 

 or eligible to registry in the herd book of that breed. Second, 

 it is an animal possessing a distinctive and useful type. Third, 

 it is descended from a long line of ancestors specially selected 

 by the men who founded and developed that breed, these ances- 

 tors being of the same type as itself, which fact explains why 

 the animal may be termed a purebred. Fourth, being backed 

 up by an ancestry of useful animals like itself, it has the power 

 to reproduce this useful type in its offspring, this power or ability 

 being called prepotency. As it is a rule of breeding that what 

 goes into an animal from its ancestors will come out in its off- 

 spring, we at once realize the purebred's power for good when 

 used as a breeder. The terms "full blood" and "thorough- 

 bred" are often erroneously used in place of the word purebred. 



A cross-bred animal is one whose sire and dam were both 

 purebred, but belonged to different breeds. A cross between 

 a Shorthorn bull and a Hereford cow, for example, produces a 

 cross-bred calf. 



A scrub animal is one that bears no evidence of good breed- 

 ing one without any purebred ancestors, or, at most, very few 

 and very distant ones. Its ancestors were a miscellaneous lot, 

 of all shapes, sizes, colors, and sorts, few if any of which were 

 useful animals. Hence, scrub animals are usually of indeter- 

 minate type and little value. 



