THE COW IN HEALTH AND DISEASE 47 



fault. The best cow will not be a good invest- 

 ment if she does not receive good care and 

 proper feeding. The average farmer pays too 

 little attention to his cows ; usually he just throws 

 the feed into them and lets them take care of 

 themselves. 



One of the greatest crimes against the cows is 

 the utter disregard of breeds. We find cows that 

 are inbred and others that have 2 or 3 crosses to 

 other breeds ; frequently these crosses are antag- 

 onistic to each other. It seems that most farm- 

 ers breed to the bull that is handiest, regardless 

 of his individuality or breeding. No attention is 

 paid to conformation. These mongrel bulls or 

 barnyard lunkheads are losing the farmers of 

 the United States vast sums of money each year. 



In many sections farmers are beginning to 

 breed for better animals. It does not matter so 

 much whether the farmer keeps all purebred 

 stock, but he should always strive to breed for 

 those characteristics that go with the particular 

 kind of animal that he wants. Personally, we 

 would rather have an extra good individaul that 

 was not purebred than a purebred that was lack- 

 ing in many of those characteristics that belong 

 to its kind. The immature and small cow is often 

 kept for breeding purposes just because her dam 

 was a good cow. This should not be done, as 

 often this poor individual is the result of mixed 

 breeding. 



The average cow is fed on the coarsest of 

 roughage, with very little grain. Usually the 



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