EFFECTS OF TICK ERADICATION. 3 
In counties which have been released from quarantine because of 
the eradication of the cattle tick the live-stock industry has imme- 
diately begun to improve, for better breeding bulls have been shipped 
into these counties and the cattle have advanced in price. This 
improvement has taken place on the farms of men who are primarily 
interested in the cattle business and not on the small farms where but 
few cattle are kept. It is well known that the small farmers out- 
number the cattlemen many times over, hence the small farmer is not 
getting the full benefit to be derived from the work of cleaning up a 
county. There are a number of reasons why this is true, chief among 
which is the fact that he has not cows enough to justify him in buy- 
ing a good bull, and very few of them have the monev which thev 
could spare for this purpose. Then, too, because of the fact that he 
has but two or three cows he is often indifferent to what they are 
bred. There is the mistake. If he has but two cows, all the more 
Pig. 1. — Export steers on pasture in Virginia. (Courtesy of Virginia Department of 
Agriculture.) 
important is it that he breed them to the best bull he can, instead of 
turning them out to mate with any scrub they find, because the man 
who produces a few calves is invariably in a better position to raise 
good ones than the large breeder of stock, as better care and more 
attention can be given to them. Again, the small farmer often needs 
the monev which good calves would bring far more than does the 
farmer who is well fixed and owns quite a herd of stock. It will 
cost but little more to keep a good cow, whether for milk or beef 
purposes, than to keep a scrub, and the net income will be many 
times greater on the former, so why not produce a high-priced calf 
too ? In these times of high-priced live stock it is just as important 
for the farmer to breed his cow to a good bull as it is to send his mare 
to a good stallion. The difference in price between the progeny 
from the scrub and from the good sire is relatively as great with the 
cow as with the mare ; yet how many of our small farmers have made 
