236 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



select their fancies and stick to them ; but it seems clear that 

 the recognised beef strain will differ in one district from the 

 other, which means that most- breeders of pure-bred bulls may 

 expect a market in Rhodesia. Last year over a thousand head 

 of heifers and bulls were imported, chiefly from the Union, and 

 each year the big ranches are on the lookout for bulls. In 

 September last Mr. Fleming (manager of the Rhodesdale 

 ranch) was in Bulawayo district looking for 150 young bulls, 

 and he purchased fifty from one breeder. As he told me, he 

 was pleased to find that the small breeder had become alive to 

 the necessities of the big ranches, and had been concentrating 

 on the breeding of pure-bred beef strain with excellent results. 



" In time the big ranches will create their own bull-breeding 

 herds, but this will not be for another five years or so, and even 

 then the smaller ranchmen will be in the market for sires. 

 They run, on the average, one bull to thirty cows, and as a 

 small ranch would carry 7000 cows, each such ranch would 

 require 230 bulls. 



" The Chartered Company's two ranches at Rhodesdale and 

 Victoria cover together about 70,000 head ; Liebig's carries 

 28,000 head ; and the ranches run by De Beers, the Anglo- 

 French, and the Central Estates are coming on. In addition 

 to these there are numerous small ranches which carry from 

 :}< >< » head up to 7000 and are rapidly growing. All these ranches 

 are breeding beef, and to breed beef they must have pure-bred 

 hulls of the beef strain, together with heifers, and this demand 

 creates, as I have, said, a market worth studying. It may be 

 noted that they have nothing to do with Friesland, Jersey, 

 Ayrshire, and other dairy breeds ; and it may also be men' 

 tionedj to avoid trouble, that many of the cattlemen in 

 Rhodesia know more about the beef breeds than most 

 breeders in South Africa, and that they will not take inferior 

 animal-.' 



Naturally a big ranch costs money in the creation. The 

 Chartered Company recently spent some £20,000 on native 

 cattle, representing a fraction of the outlay, and Liebig's have 

 probably spent well over £100,000 in live-stock. Expert know- 

 ledge is required to protect such large interests, and the B.S.A, 

 Company secured the services of two experienced cattlemen 



