ANIMAL BREEDING 665 



all the ups and downs of his experience. They are his chief 

 stock in trade, and he will cherish them as any other business 

 man would protect a vested interest. 



SECTION VI WEATHERING A PERIOD OF DEPRESSION 

 AND PRESERVING THE HERD 



No herd can live without ruining its owner unless sales are 

 made regularly and at good prices. It is a stream that cannot 

 be stopped without damage. 



More than once in the history of most breeds a time comes 

 suddenly when for some reason, or for no assignable cause, 

 prices drop and matters collapse generally. This calls for all 

 the ingenuity of the breeder and all his fortitude in dealing 

 with a difficult situation. 



One thing is certain, the herd must be reduced. It is simply 

 business folly to go on multiplying animals in the face of no 

 market. Such a course leads to unmanageable numbers, and 

 when they seem to have lost their value no man has the courage 

 to do for them what a real breeding herd requires. Under con- 

 ditions such as this the herd is doomed to neglect. It is only a 

 question of time when their hungry eyes will become a posi- 

 tive source of displeasure, if not of disgust, to the owner. No 

 one ever looked upon such a herd without a feeling of sorrow, 

 for its end is extinction, even though the storm pass and the 

 palmy days of the breed return. 



Neither is the other extreme to be advocated, the dumping 

 of everything upon the open market for what it will bring. The 

 writer has seen Shorthorns that cost $300 to $500 sold to the 

 butcher for $40, to be killed and eaten, only because in sudden 

 panic the owners had assumed that the Shorthorns had seen 

 their day. 



Now a really excellent breed will never " have its day." If it 

 looks that way it means only that the day will come again, and 

 not so very far in the future. The breed has served us before 

 and it will serve us again, and the man who sells the cream of 

 his herd to the butcher or " shoots his horses to feed to the 

 hogs," he is the first man on the ground to restock himself 



