128 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



The obligation laid on the breed is no less conspicuous, indeed 

 it is all the more inexorable because of the unchallenged success 

 of the breed in the work of improvement. The wide-rolling, 

 richly-grassed ranges of America's western regions have pro- 

 duced and fattened the beef of the past quarter of a century. 

 Some of it has been finished in the rich central valleys; much 

 of it has been grown on the grasses of the plains. In the 

 development of this land vital changes are of almost constant 

 record. With the transformation of open range to fenced 

 pastures and thence to farms, all in touch vnih the industry 

 are familiar. The country suddenly awakened and found itself 

 short of beef. 



Time was when the farm cow of America supplied the beef 

 and the milk, and that cow was of Shorthorn blood. The advance 

 in food values and the competition of the range herds, which 

 laid down calves oif free grass at central markets at prices with 

 which farm-raised calves could not compete, drove the cows that 

 bred feed-lot calves largely from the farms of the central west. 

 A cow could not be kept for the value of her feedyard progeny. 

 Farmers drifted with the tide, which has now receded and left 

 many of them aground. 



Conditions have changed back again. Augmented popula- 

 tion, coupled with decreased beef supplies from the ranges, opens 

 the door to profitable farm breeding of beef calves. This may 

 be done on the cheaper, rough and broken lands with a purely 

 beef cow, but it is readily accomplished on the richer lands of 

 higher value with the real farmer's cow, the cow that more than 

 pays her way at the pail while producing a prime feed-lot pros- 

 pect. That cow has been, still is, and will continue to be the 

 Shorthorn dual-purpose cow, unless the obligation which lies 

 at the door of the Shorthorn Association and Shorthorn breeders 

 is deliberately shirked. It may have been overlooked in times 

 past. ^len of great faith kept the fires burning on the original 

 altars, however, conscious and confident that over vast stretches 

 of our farming country the dual-purpose cow had her place 

 despite the competition from the open ranges, and convinced 

 that the day would come when a great light would shine on 

 the understanding of American farmers, and they would turn 

 eagerly to the big, level-framed, placid-eyed red, white or roan 

 cow, possessed of the dual capacity for milk and meat produc- 

 tion, according to her development and education, and standing 

 as a foundation-stone of profitable American agriculture. The 

 obligation to restore that cow to her place of prime importance 



