94 Milch Cows and the Production of Store Stock. 
badly in the open market, and this evil is certainly apt to occur 
in some districts before the reputation of stock bred as 
described above is satisfactorily established. Experience has, 
however, shown that the use of a good bull for a few years 
will do away with any prejudice which at first may exist 
against a neat calf of quality in a market where buyers have 
long been accustomed to coarse, and therefore, large looking 
calves. This prejudice once removed, such youngsters will 
sell at very much better prices than their ousted rivals. 
Delicacy in the calves is another point urged. If this be 
true, which experience in actual practice makes the writer 
doubt, it merely means that a little more care is required to 
get a good beast than a bad one, and obviously in these times 
of small profits at farming, what is done at all had best be 
done well. 
Again, there is the case of the small cow-keeper who has to 
use another's bull and so must take what he can get. It is a 
million pities that the prevalence of contagious abortion makes 
the co-operative ownership of a valuable sire so very difficult 
to carry out in practice. Though the difficulties caused by 
this terrible scourge are admittedly most serious, still with 
proper regulation even this obstacle to improvement might be 
overcome. 
It is self-evident that general improvement in the supply of 
stores bred by milk producers is not an easy and simple 
matter. We hold, however, that it has been shown to be 
within the bounds of possibility and only to require vigorous 
and energetic action on the part of the agricultural community. 
Holding, as we do, that within reason all things are possible to 
the great practical attainments of our farming community, we 
would emphatically urge the presence of the “ writing on the 
wall.” Whatever political party may be in power, it cannot 
be imagined that the general public opinion of this country 
will allow the just grievance of the feeder to go for long 
without remedy, so that every possible consideration must be 
given to their requirements by those to whom the continued 
exclusion of foreign and colonial live stock is commercial 
salvation. 
K. J. J. Mackenzie. 
University Department of Agriculture, 
Cambridge. 
December , 1908. 
