Breeding Special Purpose Cattle. 1 1 1 



net cost . of one physiological type with another they 

 have set in motion statistical methods in cattle breeding. 

 These men have not as yet realized the great importance 

 of this phase of their work because they were studying 

 problems concerning the cost of production with cows 

 bred as they found them. In their zeal to study feeding 

 problems they have overlooked the very much larger 

 relation of their work to cattle breeding. They have 

 aroused the breeders of beef cattle to an effort to devise 

 statistical methods of studying questions concerning 

 beef production from birth to maturity. Ways should 

 now be devised of comparing the dairy herd as a unit 

 with the beef herd as a unit in the general economy 

 of the farm and of breeding the kind of cow best for 

 each agricultural region and each farm, whether that 

 be a dairy type, a beef type or a beef-dairy type. 



The net profit from the mature cow in her individ- 

 ual capacity has been set forward as the prominent 

 fact, whereas the net profit of the herd as a whole is, 

 in the last analysis, where the farmer's interest lies. So 

 far as I know there is no adequate data showing the 

 relative profits of herds of the three classes of cattle. 

 Presumably the dairy herd, as a general rule, brings in 

 more net cash than the beef herd because people are less 

 willing to do the more exacting work of the dairy, and 

 as a consequence there is less competition. General- 

 purpose types of cattle have not been so well developed 

 for their dual office as the other two classes, and there 

 is no very good basis of comparing a herd of them with 

 a herd of either of the specialized classes. 



A friend of beef cattle says : "General-purpose 

 cattle suit a general-purpose man. Such a man will 

 take poor care of cattle and highly specialized cattle 

 must have good treatment. By combining dairy and 

 beef qualities more than half of excellence cannot be 

 secured in either line of production, and half of ex- 

 cellence is far below the point of profit." 



The breeder of dual-purpose cattle retorts : "It is 



