772 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



had been some attempt at improving the herd, but 

 this had been tried by the use of grade bulls. Some 

 of the bulls used were purchased in Kansas, but the 

 majority of them were raised from the herd itself. 

 By this method there must of necessity have been 

 considerable in-breeding, and in any event there 

 could not have been much progress made in the way 

 of grading up from such a foundation by continu- 

 ing this policy. On taking charge of the property 

 Mr. Mackenzie came to the conclusion that in order 

 to obtain the best results some radical changes had 

 to be made, first, in the kind of bulls used, and sec- 

 ond, by culling out all inferior cows undesirable for 

 breeding purposes. 



In the old days the Matador sold practically all 

 its steer cattle as two-year-olds to buyers from Da- 

 kota, Montana and Wyoming, and the prices 

 realized were not sufficient to pay the cost of pro- 

 duction. It was decided that something must be 

 done to raise the grade of the cattle to a point 

 where they would be in demand by the Kansas and 

 Missouri feeders. To attain such a standard not 

 only would the inferior cows have to be culled out, 

 but a different type of bull would have to be used. 

 Yet to carry out this plan required considerable 

 money, and at that time money with cattlemen was 

 not as plentiful as it is today. Few had as yet at- 

 tempted to use purebred bulls on the open ranges 

 of the Panhandle or in large pastures, and the ac- 

 cepted idea was that if a herd of cows was brought 

 up beyond a certain grade their reproductive quali- 



