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 thev 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 
