V EFFECTS OF TICK ERADICATION. 
standpoint of beef production. This may be due to a number of 
causes, very prominent among which stands the cattle tick. These 
animals could not grow normally while young nor develop when 
older while they were infested with ticks, which not only decreased 
the vitality of the animals by the drain upon the blood supply, but 
weakened and stunted them by transmitting the protozoa of Texas 
fever. Then, too, these cattle could not be improved rapidly by 
crossing with good beef animals, because these beef cattle were 
usually brought in from the North and would generally die of fever 
before they proved of much service. This happened so often that 
the shipping of good cattle into the South was discouraged and 
almost given up for several years. The scrub was said to be the 
only animal which could withstand the former conditions in the 
South, but in reality the animals which were submitted to these con- 
ditions for a period of years often deteriorated until a scrub re- 
sulted. Scrub cattle were, therefore, accepted, not because they were 
wanted, nor because there was no desire for better stock, but because 
the cattle tick, frequently combined with poor treatment, immature 
breeding under range conditions, and often inbreeding for genera- 
tions, gave scrubs as a result. This held true for so many years 
that the idea became fixed that only the scrub would live in the 
South despite any precautions that might be taken or conditions 
which might be changed. 
However, the use of purebred beef bulls upon these herds of scrub 
cows, especially when the herd has been kept free of ticks, has re- 
sulted in such an improvement in the calves, both as to size and 
quality, that the old notion that good cattle could not be raised in 
the South is rapidly being dispelled. 
IMPROVEMENT OF THE CATTLE. 
The more progressive farmers in sections where the cattle tick has 
been eradicated have purchased good bulls to use in grading up their 
herds. The result has been wonderful. High-grade cows, produc- 
ing deep, broad, blocky calves that mature into 800 to 900 pound 
steers at 2 years old have now replaced the small, cheap scrubs that 
were formerly on the farm. Scrub calves that were formerly worth 
from $4 to $7 at 12 months of age are supplanted by the grade beef 
calves that weigh 450 to 600 pounds at a year old and sell for $15 to 
$30 a head. Such grade calves have been marketed for the last three 
years by the Bureau of Animal Industry in the Alabama cattle-feed- 
ing experiments at prices ranging from $25 to $36 a head when 
fattened before being put upon the market. 1 Good profits were made 
on raising and feeding them. 
1 Bureau of Animal Industry Bulletin 147. 
