606 PRACTICAL PROBLEMS 



grading is the breeding for beginners. 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 that speedily 

 he will own a herd that for all practical purposes except breed- 

 ing will be as good as anybody's, all at a cost of only two or 

 three dollars per calf, and correspondingly less or more for other 

 animals. Such a course will demonstrate at once the excellence 

 of the breed, and make friends, not enemies, of the man and 

 his neighbors. 



The burden is upon the breeders and owners of pure-bred 

 flocks and herds to lead in a crusade for grading. They need 

 the market for their excess of males, and if this market were 

 fully developed, and the mass of stockmen fully alive to the 

 advantages of grading, this market alone would absorb at good 

 prices all the male output from our breeding herds, a consum- 

 mation they stand sorely in need of attaining. 



The female output of our breeding herds should be used, first, 

 to reenforce the home herds, and after that to supply deficiencies 

 in other reputable herds. Any further surplus animals should go 

 to the open market, except in some rare cases in which they are 

 needed for the real founding of new herds. 



The main difficulty is that the breeders, as a rule, are too 

 intent upon selling females and setting up a multitude of little 

 breeders in a small business ; whereas they should be not only 

 intent, but persistent, in selling males for grading purposes. 

 This is their great market, their natural outlet, and its exploita- 

 tion is their opportunity. The author has replies from hundreds 

 of breeders on this point. A large share of them profess to ex- 

 pend as much effort to sell females as to sell males, and a few 

 even more. Associations have much to do along this line. 



Begin animal breeding by grading. Grading is the safest begin- 

 ning, even for the prospective breeder of pure-bred stock. Not 

 only is it cheap and safe, but it will bring out clear and strong in 

 the grades the main breed points, and a few generations of grades 

 from low to high will spread out before the eyes of the breeder 

 such a panorama of breed characters as he would not see in 

 years of pure breeding on a small scale ; indeed, there is no 



