8 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, I917. 



stock here. Their qualities all approach the ideal more closely. 

 But they have been brought to that condition by the practice 

 of skilful, well-planned and carefully executed breeding. 



The statistical data so far presented regarding the breeding 

 industry have been drawn from official returns and cover the 

 country as a whole. They suffer from the defects of such 

 statistics. While they show the general relations in a sub,stan- 

 tially correct way, they tend to reduce to a minimum dift'erences 

 of all kinds. In the case of the last comparison made, the 

 indicated difference in average valuation between farm and 

 live stock and that imported for breeding purposes is probably 

 distinctly less than the true difference. A better comparison, 

 and one which not only shows what careful breeding means to 

 the farmer and to the nation as a source of wealth, but also 

 shows that the foreigner has no monopoly on the production of 

 fine breeding stock, is between average farm values and the 

 prices realized at auction dispersal sales of pedigreed stock in 

 this country. Let us examine a few figures of this kind. 



Table VIIT gives the average sale price of pedigreed beef 

 cattle in all sales held in this country during the six years pre- 

 ceding 1913. 



The increase of these prices over the $21.00 of the farm 

 cattle is obvious. The same considerations apply to other kinds 

 of stock. At a Guernsey cattle sale held in Oconomowoc, 

 Wisconsin, March 20, 1912, 69 head were sold at an aver- 

 age price of $377.26. Mr. H. E. Browning of Hersman, 111., 

 sold 41 Duroc-Jersey swine "of his ow^n breeding" on December 

 19, 1912, at an average price of $173 per head. The contrast 

 of this price with the $8.00 average on the farm is sufficiently 

 striking. 



The live-stock breeding industry of the world rests on a 

 foundation of pure-bred pedigreed stock. The constant aim 

 of the breeder from the earliest time has been to produce 

 differentiated types particularly adapted to his locality, condi- 

 tions and needs. Having once found or developed such a type, 

 the breeder wishes to keep it. This he can only do if it "breeds 



^Compiled b}' the Breeders' Gazette and published in the issue of 

 January i, 1913. 



