Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1878-04-18
FOR BLOOD.

Breeding for Blood we extract from a
lengthy article OH this subject in the Prairie
Farmer of March Both:
That we'll bred stock, either for beet or
the dairy, are most profitable when the
owner of the farm is prepared to care lot
them. aud all feeders and dairymen should
be prepared so to do, if they expect to reach
maximum profits in their business, is be-
yond cavil. With these facts well estao-
lished, it is strange that otherwise Well-to-
do farmers will 90 on year after year in the
old ruts, losing w years in the marketable
capacity of their stock, or keeping milking
COWS. giving small messes OF milk, when
500 to $50 would buy a bull, that IN a
few wears would increase the capacity OF
the stock from % per cent. to 90 per cent.'
is inco~mprehensible, and can only be ac-
counted for on the supposition that this
class of farmers do not read to keep up with
the progress of the times, and are content
to 90 on in the same ruts that were ground
out fifty years ago.
Farmers, however. are not entirely TO
blame. Breeders. themselves have not ,un-
I'LL WltilIu ullC liSG iON yOdlSs SSSA I'S ASoSN
sity of advertising their stock in such jour-
nails as reach the more intelligent classes OF
farmers. They seem to have thought it
sufficient to advertise in Journals taken only
by fine stock breeders, and hence to their
stock have got to revolve in a circle, pretty
nearly bounded by the horizon OF the breed
ers themselves. A large number OF our
farmers regard fine stock as being necessa-
ri]y tender in their constitution. 1t is not
strange that it should be so. They have
been in the habit at our fairs, when they go
to see, Of seeing To- animals, blanketed
and tended as carefully AS children, and
when they ask the price of these show ami
mails, the figures are so long that they are
scared by them. How should they know
that good, serviceable animals can be
bought at comparatively low prices? They
have also got the impression that Short
horns are infertile, and this from the fact
that certain families have been so strictly IN
bred as to render many Of them not only
infertile, but deficient in constitutional Wig
or in other directions. This feeling has eN-
tended to other pure breeds as we'll, and
aside from certain families of Shorthorns
without the slightest foundation. These
highly bred families, however, are held at
prices entirely out of the range of the ordi-
nary farmer, who simply wants to breed
good beef cattle, or use bulls to get grades.
These high bred cattle. nevertheless, have a
legitimate place, but confined to high caste
breeders. 1t is true. however, that the
well informed farmer is beginning to real
, ize that all goodness is not wrapped up in
the hides of Dukes and Duchesses, and OF
:, late even the seventcens, so long under a
cloud. are being found to have merit as beef
: producers.
: The plan. therefore, for the individual
: who wishes to improve his stock. whether
: it be of Holsteins, Ayrshires, or Jerseys fol-
the dairy, or of Shorthorns, Heretords, OIL
! Deyons tor beef, is not to buy an animal be-
: cause : his pedigree is blue but for the in.
= trinsic value and stamina of the animal it.
: self. The farmer who wants to breed fol
: beef, for instance can get a Shorthorn bull
y that will prove a good investment at 500 tc
J $50. and one also that will prove entirely
: satisfactory. In Heretords there has no
: been so much speculation. For this reason
: this breed is, rs a class, far evener, in thel
J They are also better in their constitution
" than many ~Shorthorns. Nevertheless, out
. side some : terribly bred'' families of Short
a horns. there is little to cavil at SO tar as con
~ stitution ia concerned.