Conkey's Stock Book 



PROFIT means pushing to the limit of healthy production. There 

 is no room for easy going methods on the farm of today. Beef type, 

 dairy type, fleece or mutton, every farm animal must come up to the 

 standard for quality selected, and must pay good returns on the 

 money invested. Who wants star boarders? 



Start right. Good care and feeding insure good qualities if the stock 

 itself has them. This general subject of selection is the foundation of 

 success or failure. Know what you want: pick your type: stick to it, and 

 give it your unremitting care. No matter how good the ration and how 

 well fitted to a special production, you will defeat the whole purpose of 

 your feeding if you fail in the first place to select good animals of the 

 type desired. You cannot get milk by feeding a beef animal, so you 

 select in the first place the characteristics wanted, and then feed for the 

 development of these characteristics alone. Nothing will correct mistakes 

 in selection. Start right; then feed a plenty; but don't keep pitching down 

 feed for a lot of greedy animals that make you no return. 



Cut loose from Nature and her losing game join hands with money- 

 making science and then see how farming pays. Nature wants five years 

 to make a 1000 Ib. steer but you can get that weight in one year. 

 Nature wants just twice the time the modern hog raiser needs to make 

 a 200 Ib. hog. Nature made her plans for milk enough for a cow's calf, 

 and she was satisfied with a milk flow during good pasture season but 

 are you so easily satisfied? 



There is one mighty good thing you can learn from Dame Nature. 

 You can learn how she operates her law for the survival of the most fit. 

 Just follow that law boldly and follow it closely. You have a lot to do 

 in your time and a shorter life than old Nature so make every bit of it 

 count. Be particular, a good deal more particular than Nature. Weed out 

 the "bad doers." Don't waste valuable time on a poor individual, for 

 such weaklings will surely be developed at the expense of your other stock. 



FITTING Start first with conditions. Consider your surroundings 



CONDITIONS and how they are suited to a given breed. It is right to 

 plan for conditions as you hope them to be, but start 

 with due consideration for things as they actually are. Certain breeds will 

 not thrive, or produce their maximum results, no matter how good the 

 care, if placed in surroundings at total variance with those under which 

 they have been developed for generations past. We must take into account 

 such inborn characteristics, the natural fitness to the conditions that we 

 find. Thus, consider your facilities for raising the food-stuffs best adapted 

 to the chosen breed, consider the lay of the land, its drainage and soil 

 conditions on account of rain supply, and the nature of the climate with 

 which you have to deal. 



BREEDS Practically all breeds are good that is good for something. 



No breed is fool proof. Know what you want. For beef 



production select carefully the animals intended for further development. 



