THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 29 
366 
Live Stock Matters 
WHAT IS A SCRUB COW? 
A WYOMING MAN TALKS. 
Mr. Cephas Breed in The R. N.-Y. of 
May 8, in attempting to defend scrub 
dairy stock, puts himself in the novel 
position of denouncing Jerseys and Ayr- 
shires as scrubs. Webster defines scrub, 
in the abstract, as mean, dirty, con¬ 
temptible, scrubby ; scrubby as small 
and mean, stunted in growth. The 
name, scrub, as used with reference to 
stock breeding, is defined by the same 
authority as one of the common live 
stock of a region of no particular breed, 
a native. 
We may, therefore, have scrub Jerseys 
and Ayrshires, as well as scrubby in¬ 
dividuals of any other pure breed ; but 
the commonly accepted technical use of 
the word scrub is too well understood to 
permit its unchallenged application to a 
breed or class of live stock, simply on 
account of inferiority of size or weight 
as compared with some other breed or 
class. The injustice of stigmatizing a 
well-bred Shetland pony, of proper build 
and proportions as compared with other 
representatives of the same breed, as a 
scrub on account of diminutiveness as 
compared with a representative animal 
of one of the draft breeds, or character¬ 
izing a purebred bantam fowl as scrubby 
because it does not assume the propor¬ 
tions of a Brahma or Buff Cochin, would, 
probably, be apparent even to Mr. Breed. 
He then proceeds to qualify his remarks 
by saying, “ But if scrub is inten ded to 
mean native stock and grades, etc.” 
The term “ grides ” as applied to live 
stock, is commonly understood as in¬ 
dicating a positive knowledge of the 
breeding of the animals included in this 
class—which knowledge, of course, may 
be meager or comprehensive, applying 
to either male or female ancestor or 
both; hence grades are not “common 
live stock of a region of no particular 
breed 
Any one of experience is prepared to 
admit that animals of exceptional merit 
are occasionally developed in herds or 
localities where the lack of attention to 
breeding might fairly be supposed to re¬ 
sult in anything but merit, and Mr. 
Breed frankly admits that the percent¬ 
age of such animals is small. The per¬ 
centage of “ scrubs ” (common cows of 
no particular breed) to the total num¬ 
ber of cows in any given locality in the 
United States, outside the Mexican bor¬ 
der, and especially in Mr. Breed’s imme¬ 
diate vicinity, is, probably, much less 
than that at which a casual observer 
would estimate it. The numerous herds 
of purebred cattle, whether of beef or 
dairy types, that have been dispersed 
during the last decade, have been ab¬ 
sorbed largely by farmers who care less 
for aristocratic pedigree than actual 
test at the pail or churn, or on the block, 
and it is small wonder that, in a genera¬ 
tion or two, the granddaughter of some 
celebrated dairy sire crops up as a phe¬ 
nomenal “scrub”, or the sweepstakes 
prize at some local fair is carried off by 
a well-fed “ native,” furnishing conclu¬ 
sive (?) evidence of the fallacy of pin¬ 
ning one’s faith to pure breeds or high 
grades. 
The result of a cross between two pure 
breeds should not, of right, be termed 
a “ scrub ” ; neither should any animal 
carrying enough foreign blood to influ¬ 
ence its performance for the better, 
even in the slightest degree, be consid¬ 
ered as one of the common live stock of 
a region of no particular breed. Who 
is to say that old “ Brin ” does not in¬ 
herit a strain of Simmenthal blood, intro¬ 
duced too far back to be on record, and 
that it is, after all, to a purebred that 
the credit now given her is due ? Mr. 
Breed would then have us believe that 
he finds his favorite dairy cows among 
the now limited class of animals defined 
as the “ native live stock of a region, of 
no particular breed ” (A “ particular 
breed ” is simply the result of select 
breeding L along some given line, for a 
sufficient length of time to fix the char¬ 
acteristic or characteristics aimed at) ; 
but, like the man who sawed off the 
branch on which he was sitting, he forth¬ 
with destroys his favorite “scrubs,” “Be¬ 
cause what is considered a really good 
cow has been made such by select breed¬ 
ing,” etc. 
The success or failure of any enter¬ 
prise is dependent upon the exercise of 
good judgment and careful attention to 
detail; and certainly no business calls 
for a closer application of these princi¬ 
ples than stock breeding. That a man 
should assume that, because he has the 
best cows in his neighborhood, he can 
make the best butter and then sell it at 
the highest price without giving the 
matter any further attention, is a fallacy 
no one has, as yet, attempted to teach. 
A manufacturer would scarcely invest 
his capital in costly buildings, expensive 
machinery and modern appliances, and 
then turn ’round and buy his raw ma¬ 
terial haphazard, turn it over to inex¬ 
perienced employees, and complacently 
sit down and await the result in the ex¬ 
pectation that the output will be a well- 
finished product; neither should the 
farmer buy high-priced purebred cows, 
and then expect them to do the rest, 
without further attention from him. 
Mr. Breed closes his article with a 
question the reply to which is obvious ; 
whichever animal goes to the block, 
practical tests must be applied to each 
individual case, and such tests would 
certainly be incomplete if not so con¬ 
ducted as to show the ratio of cost of 
production to product. The manufac¬ 
turer knows, to the fraction of a cent, 
what his product has cost him ; that the 
farmer does not, indicates a degree of 
indifference which would soon wreck 
any ordinary business enterprise. The 
capacity of a dairy cow is measured by 
the number of pounds of milk or butter 
produced in a given time, and, presum¬ 
ably, under the most favorable circum¬ 
stances ; a change, however, to more ex¬ 
pensive feeds may not, as a matter of 
fact, be followed by a corresponding in¬ 
crease of milk or butter produced. Just 
what will constitute the most economi¬ 
cal ration necessary to produce a certain 
result, must be determined by each in¬ 
dividual owner for each individual ani¬ 
mal in his herd. henry white. 
Sheridan County, Wyo. 
“Brin” and Jersey Compared. 
“What is a ‘scrub’, anyway?” I 
would define her as a cow that fails to 
pay her owner a dividend over and above 
the expense of keeping her. The defi¬ 
nition given by The R. N.-Y. does not 
seem to me to be sufficiently exacting. 
But I fail to grasp the definition Mr. 
Breed means to give, page 318, except 
impliedly, as a native cow of uncertain 
origin. Now, I must contend that The 
R. N.-Y. is not guilty of the charges he 
prefers, for it does not contend for the 
superiority of any particular breed, and, 
in waging war on the robber cow, it 
does so regardless of breed or previous 
condition. On the other hand, it strikes 
me that Mr. Breed’s argument is extreme¬ 
ly illogical, based on false premises, 
and the conclusion, as a natural con¬ 
sequence, exceedingly, damagingly mis¬ 
leading. He represents Brin as being a 
profitable cow. If she is, then she is not 
a robber cow. But is one Brin as good 
as another ? Plainly not. He still seems 
to cling to the long since exploded fal¬ 
lacy that it pays to keep stock for the 
purpose of converting certain vegetable 
substances into manure, forgetting that 
the sort of farmers to whom he refers is 
not likely to regain 50 per cent of the 
manurial value of the substance after it 
passes through the animal that might 
have been obtained by returning the 
raw material directly to the soil. He 
asks whether it pays to feed grain to 
Jerseys at present prices of butter, but 
almost in the same breath, says that 
Brin will make half as much with “ some 
grain” added to her roughage. Some 
men may contend that it does not pay 
to use a two-horse cultivator, because it 
will do no more work than two one- 
(Continued on next page.) 
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