168 THE WORLDS MEAT FUTURE 



Buccess of the breed in the work of improvement. The wide- 

 rolling, richly grassed ranges of America's western regions havo 

 produced 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 

 <l<\ elopment 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 with 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 off 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 prospect. 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. Men 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 Mould shine on the understanding of Ameri- 

 can 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 production, according to her 



