ANIMAL BREEDING 673 



replenish or extend their herds. What shall be done with the 

 rest ? The answer to this question depends somewhat upon the 

 class of animals and the circumstances of the breeder, but on 

 general principles the destination of surplus females should be 

 the open market, and this, destination should be reached as 

 soon as possible after unfitness to take a place in the permanent 

 herd is well established. 



The one thing that should not be done is to employ this 

 surplus generally as material for the establishment of new herds. 

 There is a feeling among breeders that no animal eligible to 

 registry should be sent to the open market, especially to the 

 shambles. Nothing could be more erroneous. To use surplus 

 females for the establishment of a multitude of small, weak 

 herds in the hands of men who have no experience and no 

 genius for breeding, is at first to arouse vain hopes that will not 

 be realized and afterward to bring down curses, not only on 

 "blooded stock" and breeders in general but on this special 

 breed in particular. 



The safest and the best destination of all surplus females is 

 the open market, where they will sell for what they are worth 

 and be entirely safe and out of the way, with a small but safe 

 balance to their account on the books at home, after having 

 afforded the best possible practical test of the real commercial 

 value of the type that is being bred in the herd which they 

 represent. In this way all females help to test the herd. 



SECTION IX A MARKET FOR SIRES 



It is quite the opposite with males. The great business of 

 all pure-bred herds is the production of sires, and the country 

 ought to be industriously campaigned in the interest of " placing " 

 sires for grading purposes. If they cannot be sold let them be 

 rented, or in some way gotten at work. Let there be coopera- 

 tion between breeders, even between breeds, for the placing of 

 sires. Let salesmen cover the country as do agents of machinery, 

 and sell sires on some terms. The practice of grading must 

 be brought into American farming, and nobody is so much 

 interested in this as the breeders themselves. The common 



