The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-06-20
Keen the rested Hull.

Professor Davenport of the Illinois
Agricultural College believes that the
general practice among farmers of US
ing only very young bulls. disposing OF
them at about three years of age, re-
CARELESS of their qualities. is a very
bad one. He thinks the bulls that
prove themselves to be producers of
the right kind of stock should be re-
| tanned in service much longer. Speak
ing on this before the Kansas Stock
Breeders Association he said
1 find that the prevailing custom the
country over is to buy a young bull, a
year or younger, and sell him when he
is about three or four years old. That
is done a great deal. About year
ago 1 submitted the following quest
ion to about 1000 breeders, Do you
test bulls, and, IL so, how. and IL you
do not, why not. One man answered,
| What is the use of testing They are
guaranteed to be breeders. He did not
know what I meant Another man
said. Yes, always test them. I al
ways watch the first few calves that
come into the herd, and II they do not
suit me I sell them. He called that
testing the bull
They nearly all confessed they sold
them, usually that they sold them
when when three or four years old. 1t
seems to be a fact that the custom of
the country is to put young bulls in
service and sell them when they are
beginning to be useful. 1t seems to
me that every catleman ought to know
that any bull is ugly. He is born ugly.
Any bull is dangerous. He is not a
pet. We do not take him into the
house If man was going to breed
lions train tigers or fool with boa con-
strictors. he fould understand he was
dealing with dangerous animals. Let
him have the same understanding with
bulls. Let us not try to teach him any
tricks. because he knows tricks we
are not interested in. This bull Is for
business. He just begins to be use
full when he is about four-years old.
| You have no means of knowing what
the bull is actually putting into the
herd until he is four years old. The
first calves win come when he is two
years old and they will only be deve-
| Hoped when he is four years old. 1t
is the bulls of the country that are
in service from four years old and
upward that are doing the best work
of the country. We buy these young
bulls because they are cheaper, easier
to handle. and not so dangerous.
! There is still another reason, they
I look better You know the animals
that go out to our cattle sales are very
largely young animals. We must
| nave come bldHudTu Oh PICKING DuIlS
besides the ordinary standard of what
will make good animal on the block
we are buying our youngsters when
they would make good baby-beef
breeding them for two or three years
and selling them for bologna
| What is IL that goes to make up the
valuable qualities of a bull to be used
for breeding. I hear a good deal about
the comparative merits of pedigree and
individual excellence. A few years
ago they all said II the pedigree is all
right. the animal will be all right. and
now we are having a reversion of feel
ing. and men say, l want individual ex-
cellence anyway and then IL you have
a pedigree throw 1t in. We all want
a good animal, and we want one that
is bred right, that has a good. he
spectacle pedigree but we want another
thing 1T seems to me and clearly so,
before we are satisfied that this is a
bull to keep In our herd, and that is
that we want some kind of a breeding
record Of that animal.
You cannot study breeding records
a great while without becoming salts
fed that some of our animals with the
best pedigree have been great failures
as breeders. All their progeny were
inferior and always have been more or
less questionable as to value.
|