IO2 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



American Breeders' Association, urged that ranchmen 

 breed bulls for ranch use. 



But the chief opposition the breeders of special-pur- 

 pose Short-horns must eventually meet is from the 

 breeders of milking Short-horns and other breeds suited 

 to the production of both milk and meat. Some fami- 

 lies of Short-horn cattle are specialized toward beef 

 nearly as completely as are the Hereford or Aberdeen- 

 Angus breeds. True, the atavic powers of these Short- 

 horns to produce milk in paying quantities are not so 

 weak nor so remote in the ancestral lines as in the other 

 breeds named. In some cases this specialization away 

 from milk has gone too far, even where the cows are 

 never to be milked but are to raise baby beef on the 

 farm or export beef on the range. 



The large and profitable field for the production of 

 registered pure-bred beef bulls and heifers to supply 

 farmers and ranchmen and to fit our beginners in breed- 

 ing registered stock will no doubt remain permanent. 

 While this is true of Herefords and Aberdeen-Angus, 

 as well as of beef Short-horns, the latter class of cattle 

 will best serve the present purposes of illustration. 



In no class of cattle has the combination of mere 

 herd book name records and visual judging at shows 

 led to greater mistakes than in the breeding of some 

 families of Short-horn cattle. We have the anomalous 

 condition of a bright lot of breeders having idolized 

 the "reds" and neglected the "roans" till only the choic- 

 est roans are left, and the roans now naturally average 

 better than the reds, as shown by the fact that they get 

 far more than their proportion of prizes at shows as 

 compared with the reds. 



But of far more consequence is the fact that the 

 Short-horn breeders have succumbed to the dairyman's 

 philosophy, that special-purpose cattle are the "whole 

 thing/' and in some cases seem to have given up three 

 parts in value of milk for one part additional in value 

 of beef. In other words the dairyman's talk, the ranch- 

 man's need for beef sires and the show judge's assump- 



