The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-24
Breed for a Definite Purpose.
(By Prof. w. F. Massey

No man who would win on the trOt-
tink track would use the Percheron
horse for a breeder of trotters. No
sportsman would expect to get a good
bird dog out of bull dog, and no
man would breed Shetland ponies to
sell for city draft horses. 1t is we'll
known that all these animals have
been bred for a special purpose, and
while excellent in their special work,
they cannot be equally we'll adapted
to very different work. The Perche-
ron is built for heavy draft and not
for speed; the trotting horse has been
developed for the capacity of reach
ing out rapidly and covering ground
with speed, and he has not the weight
nor the particular build to make a
draft animal. The pony is a play
thing that is very pretty in his place,
and the bull dog can never cover the
field like the setter or pointer, even
if his nose was adapted to the work.
and active 30 :. 6. 6. g. g. g. q
He is is not built that way. The 1.-THE
and active game cock will make short
work in a fight with the clumsy Buff
Cochin, for he is built that way.
But there are men all over the
country, who should know better.
who keep talking and writing about
the dual-purpose COW. The COW
whose physical conformation makes
her a deep mixer can never be eN-
pected to put on the broad IONS alo
square hams of the beef bred allllna'
And i'm like manner the amman tnh'
has for generations been bred to thH
hast t0ne cannot abandon the habit
of laving on fat on her back and go
ino drv of milk half the time. IN"
fact is that the real dual-purpose an
imaI the animal that Will give u"
best return in milk and butter apG
also best return in beef. is MYTH.
an impossibility. But every now ana
then we are told that certain snort
horn or a certain Red Poiled COW mas
made a phenomenal dairy yield. This
may be perfectly true. but it only
shows that that particular animal mas
been bred into dairy type, and is &c
that extent less a beef animal. AnG
more than this, these phenomena
dairy animals in a beef breed gener-
aIly fail to transmit their character 10
their offspring by beef bulI. 1he-
are mere sports( lusus naturae, anC
their progeny soon returns 10 tnt
proper place of the breed. beef MAX
ing. on the other hand, we hear men
assert that they have the dual-pur-
nose animal in the Holstein COW. Ihey
make the mistake of supposing that
size makes a beef animal. But When
a dairv-bred animal is slaughtered. ne
matter how fast she has gained IN
weight from feeding, 1T Will be founo
that she has not the broad loins aac
deep hams that a true beer ANNA
has. and that the fat she has gained
has been placed inside. from the ten
dency in a dairy animal to store IN
her udder, and the fat is cheap tai
low rather than the nicely marbled
and sirloin or the broad
juicy round.
But it is said that all over the coun-
try there are farmers who are neither
dairymen nor beef men. who want
few cows and are content with milk
and butter for family use If the COW
will produce good veal calves to sell.
There is a good deal of plausiblllty
in this for the thoughtless man who
keeps no account Of coost of keeping
and feeding a COW. A COW that viii
give far less milk when fresh thar
a dairy formed COW. and which will
go dry for six months and leave him
without milk and butter while she
lays on fat, will require very high
priced calves to make UP the loss II
the dairy, and she is usually fed al
a loss even to the man who is neither
a dairyman nor a beef man. The FACT
is. that the farmer who keeps only
II
best dairy animal to be had, and he
does not need beef animal at all
The true dairyman who. thoroughly
knows his business. is never fooled
by the dual-purpose animal notion
and the man whose interest is in beet
will not if he knows his business
have anything of the dairy type OF
his land. Half and half animals
neither the best for milk nor the bxt
1nl 70,
who is neither one thing nor another
but who keeps COWS to stand on ths i
lee side of a straw stack in winter
and whose chief idea in keeping cat
tie is to try how little he can keeT
them alive with. l once had letter
from young man in a tobacco Sec
ton, who said that he thoubht that
ne could make money raising mllch
cows TO osell to his neighbors who
were absorbed in tobacco and only
wanted family COW. He wanted tc
know the best breed he could selec
tor the purpose, stating that / mus
understand the buyers would expect |
a COW TO get her living out doors al
the year around, and that they would
have to stand all sorts of neglect !
told him that it was perfectly use.
less for him to breed dairy type an.
imals for such men, and that the onl
thing for them was a common scrub
When l was a boythere were won
derfully deep mixers in what we Their
called the Durhams. But the mod
ern Shorthorn has been so continu
ousIy bred to beef points that this ole
strain has almost disappeared though
here and there we hear of dairymeI
who are keeping Shorthorns exclu-
Sively for milk, and claim that they
are the best they can find. They have
simply, by a sort of ativism, run back
on the old Durham, and have gotten
their cows into pure dairy type and
hence not beef animals though they
may make big, coarse veal calves