LIVE STOCK. 



163 



tempted in the other way it would re- 

 quire twenty pure-bred individuals, 

 and the crop of calves would have no 

 more improvement; besides which, 

 the improvement made would be not 

 in one but in twenty lines, each with 

 its shade of difference. 



Expressed in terms of money, it is 

 possible to give all the calves in a 

 herd a pure-bred sire — that is, make 

 them all half bloods — at a total cost 

 of approximately two dollars per calf, 

 assuming, of course, a reasonable 

 number of cows in the herd and a bull 

 at a moderate price, buf good enoug'h 

 for grading. If the making of half- 

 blood calves were accomplished in the 

 other way, however, — that is, by pro- 

 viding the pure-bred parent on the 

 dam's side, — it would cost, at the 

 same relative rate, close to forty dol- 

 lars as a minimum. This s:hows the 

 necessarily extreme cost of pure breds 

 as compared with gravies. 



Improvement by grading is of course 

 limited to herd improvement. It adds 

 nothing to the breed, but it distributes 

 breed excellence rapidly and with ex- 

 treme certainty. Such a sire is al- 

 most surely prepotent over the dams, 

 whatever they may be, an^ the mathe- 

 matics of mating shows that if the 

 practice is continued for sdx genera- 

 tions, but one and a half per cent, of 

 the original xmimproved blood will re- 

 main, as is shown in the table accom- 

 panying. 



By this we see that the unimproved 

 blood soon becomes insignificant and 

 rapidly disappears. This is wby it Is 

 that in the early days of a breed the 

 sixth or seventh cross is declared 

 eligible to record. 



It should be noted +iat if any one 

 of these generations be bred with itself 

 (grades with grades) no progress is 

 made. Thus individuals of the second 

 gemeration are one fourth unimproved, 

 and, bred to a generation of their own 

 kind, they will still remain one fourth 

 unimproved. By the same principle, 

 half bloods bred to half bloods will 

 produce half bloods indefinitely. The 

 effects of erading cease the moment 

 we discontinue the pure-bred sire. 



Abuse of Grading, 



The chief drawback in grading is 

 that it is likely not to be followed up. 

 The breeder is almost certain to 

 choose some promising half or three- 



quarter blood for a sire because he 

 "looks as good" as a pure bred, and 

 then by the law of ancestral heredity 

 all improvement stops except the little 

 that can be accomplished by the slow 

 process of selection. 



Advantages of Grading. 



For economic purposes grades may 

 be equal to pure breds, but they are 

 worthless for breeding purposes; this 

 is the plain conclusion of what is well- 

 known of the principles of breeding. 

 Grading is cheap. By the use of a sin- 

 gle individual it secures at once some- 

 thing more than half of the total ex- 

 cellence of the breed, and if followed 

 up it will secure in time, through sires 

 alone, practically all of it. 



This is the system of breeding to be 

 recommended to the great mass of 

 stockmen, and if it could be generally 

 adopted and followed up it would add 

 millions to agriculture. Every stock- 

 man knows that the great bulk of the 

 best cattle in the markets are high- 

 grade Sborthoms and Herefords. Fig- 

 ures surely show that the less-known 

 Angus and its close relative the Gallo- 

 way, are equally successful for grad- 

 ing purposes. The failure to make the 

 most of grading is the largest single 

 mistake of our farmers and the most 

 conclusive evidence of shortsighted 

 business policy on the part both of the 

 general farmer and of the breeder of 

 pure-hred stock. 



The Breeder's Business is the Produc- 

 tion of Sires. 

 The professional breeder is a pro- 

 ducer of sires, and he should sell 

 males, not females. He should take 

 the amateur kindly into his confidence 

 and explain that while he himself is 

 in the business for profit, and his ani- 

 mals are for sale, yet he fully realizes 

 that grading is the breeding for begin- 

 ners. He can easily show the novice 

 that If he will keep his old females, or, 

 if not, get plenty of such as are easily 

 available, he can have as many grades 

 within a year as he can provide 

 females now, and tl»at speedily he will 

 own a herd that for all practical pur- 

 poses except breeding will be as good 

 as anybody's, all at a cost of only two 

 or three dollars per oalf, and corre- 

 spondingly less or more for other ani- 

 mals. Such a course will demonstreite 

 at once the excellence of the breed 



