112 Western Live-stock Management 



financial value of cattle and of blood lines. The most 

 expert judge of commercial beef is not competent to buy 

 pure-bred cattle until he has had a course of training of 

 this kind. It should be borne in mind from the outset 

 that with any improved breeds of live-stock there is some 

 tendency for them to revert back to the unimproved form 

 and usually the more highly they have been improved the 

 greater the tendency for reversion. The man, therefore, 

 who buys a bunch of cows at $250 a head and a bull for 

 the same price and expects to sell the offspring for $250 

 a head will be disappointed. About the only way which 

 the $250 cows can be kept producing $250 calves is by the 

 use of a bull of a much higher quality, and on that ac- 

 count it is usually found necessary to pay three or four 

 times as much for a bull as for the cows. We would 

 hesitate to say that it is always advisable for the beginner 

 to buy only the very highest class and highest priced 

 animals, but we would warn the prospective breeder 

 against inferior pure-bred stock. The cattle must in 

 all cases be good useful stock of such quality that the 

 bulls will be capable of producing a marked improvement 

 on the average herd of good commercial beef. Sway- 

 backed, cat-hammed, or slab-sided bulls are worthless 

 no matter how imposing the pedigree. 



FEED AND CARE 



As previously indicated, pure-bred cattle require better 

 feed than will grade cattle. This is not because they will 

 not do as well on poor feed as will grade cattle, but be- 

 cause, in order to make a commercial success of pure-bred 

 cattle, they must be kept in a higher degree of flesh and 

 growing more rapidly. Breeding cows do not need to be 



