FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 127 



tage in using your own bulls — you don't get such troubles as 

 contagious abortion, or tuberculosis. 



Then, too, a man who raises his own stock knows it, he 

 likes it, has a personal interest, feeds it rather better, and when 

 it comes to maturity he sees how much good there is in it and 

 develops it giving it better attention and care than if he went 

 out buying stock. That is a very important factor in the dairy- 

 ing proposition. A man who does not love cattle will not suc- 

 ceed at dairying. 



Now in regard to bulls, I am emphasizing with "mailce 

 a forethought." I am confident that using good bulls is the, 

 greatest step that you can make. You should always use a 

 pure bred sire. What breed ? It doesn't matter ; only this : 

 continue to use the same breed. We are not raising cows for the 

 fun of it, but to make milk and sell it. Breed the same kind 

 that 3^our neighbor has, and the men all around you. In New 

 England we are a stubborn people and we hate to imitate any- 

 body. We are independent above all things, and if our neigh- 

 bor buys a pure bred Holstein bull we wouldn't buy one of that 

 breed because we would be imitating. We have suffered from 

 that, and I can take you to many communities in New Eng- 

 land that in a radius of five miles you can find four different 

 pure breeds. Why? Just because they are independent. Let 

 all breed the same breed in a community, it does not matter 

 which breed. In the last analysis the individuality of the cow 

 is the thing. Good cows, any breed — only work together. 



You sometimes hear it said that the sire is one-half of the 

 herd; I want to tell you that the sire is the whole herd when it 

 comes to the improvement of the dairy cows in this country. 

 My friend who is in the milk business near Chicago goes out and 

 buys better cows; he can pay more monev and he can get better 

 cows than I can. Everytime he buys a good cow, I cannot get 

 that cow ; when he is improving his herd he is degrading some- 

 body else's herd. The only way that we can improve the en- 

 tire milk production of this state is by using better bulls than 

 we have ever used before. If it is a fact that grade bulls are 

 being used in Southern Illinois then I give it to you as members 



