The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-10-01
STOCK
USE ONLY PURE BRED BULLS.

Now that dairy and meat products
are bringing good prices and are like
" to continue to do so as long as our
present prosperity lasts, it is certainly
advisable for farmers to cease using
grade bulls, no matter what may be
their individual merit, or what class
of stock the farmer is growing.
1t is quite as important for the
farmer who is growing dual purpose
cattle to secure pedigreed bulls as it
is for the farmer who is handling
special purpose dairy cattle or special
purpose beef cattle. 1t is the custom
of the ordinary dairyman or patron of
the creamery, now, and has been for a
hundred years, to buy any sort of a
bull that will beget a calf. What he
wants is a calf, and ordinarily he is
not very particular what kind of q
calf. Hence he concludes that a grade
bull worth twenty-five to fifty dollars
will do quite as we'll as a pure bred
one worth from one to two hundred
dollars.
Beef growers on a large scale gen.
orally realize the Importance of secur-
ing bulls of a pronounced beef type,
and they are quite we'll aware of the
value of breeding. A vast number of
farmers, however, and especially of
the smaller farmers who grow cattle
mainly for beef, fail to realize this;
so much so, in fact, that it is a com.
mon maxim that the beef cattle today
are not generally in the Mississippi
valley of as good quality as they were
twenty years ago. This is penny wis.
dom and pound foolishness.
If a herd is not large enough to
justify a man in buying a pure bred
bull, then far better join with two or
three of the neighbors and buy one for
use in their several herds. In dairy
herds it is especially important to
use pure bred dairy sires, because
only in this way can the high milking
qualities of the herd be maintained.
1t is equally important to use only
pure bred bulls if you are handling
dual purpose cattle. 1t is very much
more difficult to secure them, for the
reason that we have no definite spec.
ial breed as yet of this type of cattle
We are obliged to secure bulls that
descend from ancestors of pronounced
milking type if we are ever able to
establish the type of cattle. The rea
son why many farmers of this class
use grade bulls is the difficulty of Sc
curing pure bred bulls that will serve
their purpose. They never will secure
them until there is such a demand
that breeders of pure bred cattle will
keep milk records of their best cows
They will never do this, nor can they
reasonably be expected to do it. as
long as the farmer will pay large
price for a calf that has pronounced
beef quality, but will pay only a
small price for the calf that fails In
this respect
Ii the breeder will let his calves
run with the COWS, possibly also hav.
ing nurse COW to help, in order to
produce fine looking bulls for sale, he
must not expect to develop milking
qualities in his herd. The time has
gone when it will do to merely say:
This Calls dam was great mixer
or The calf can't take all the milk"
or "She could raise two calves, if
necessary" The farmer who wishes
to buy pure bred bull for use in his
dairy herd must have better evidence
than this, and that can only be fur
nished by milking the COW and test
ing the milk, and thus making a re-
liable record to which he can refer
the proposed buyer. Until this is done
breeders should not complain if farm