The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1908-07-02
Decatur County Fine Stock Breed
erS Association.

A meeting of the Decatur County
Fine Stock Breeders Association was
held ct the Commercial Club rooms in
Leon on last Saturday, there being
about twenty of the best breeders Of
the county in attendance. A number
of matters for the good of the associa-
alton were discussed and considerable
interest was manifested in the coming
annual sale of the association which
will be held in this city on Oct. I'd, at
which large number of the best bred
stock in Decatur county will be sold at
public auction.
A. i. Meter, president Of the associ-
alton, read the following paper giving a
brief history of the association and it's
aims:
II want to give you brief history of
the stock breeding business in this
part OF Iowa, as l remember it for the
last twenty five or thirty years, and
the difference in the breeding business
here now as compared to that time.
You know we had then mostly the small
class OF horses, the mixed breeds of
cattle and hogs. Now we have the
pure breeds of all classes of stock and
great interest is taken in the breeding
of poultry, and of grain also. Among
the first good draft horses / remember
was Rock, gray Norman owned at
Garden Grove, and later Star of the
West, white grade Norman owned by
Uncle John, the darby. Then at Chart
ton S. II. Mallory had a good Clyde
horse. Among the Short-Horn herds |
recall the name of Allen Pryor's herd
bull Balco, I. j. Eals' bull Bellchief, and
few years later my fathers bull DR..
Goldendrip. Now, these first draft
horses and first Short-Horn bulls
brought in here made big improvements
in the horses and cattle of this county
and numbers of their descendants are
on the different farms here, and we are
still irving to improve upon them. Now
Short-Horn history tells us that in
Ohio and Kentucky they organized i'm
porting companies and went to England
and secured pure bred cattle, and our
earlier breeders from here went back
to illinois, Ohio and Kentucky for their
breeding stock. These importers made
good money and also did the states of
Ohio and Kentucky big service as
we'll, and so it was financial success
for our early breeders here and good
thing generally for this part of the
state. Improvement in the breeding of
stock, grain and poultry should be the
keynote, the watchword for all the
farmers of Iowa. The ways and modes
of living, and of doing business in the
last thirty years have changed and l
believe we as farmers and breeders
must make some changes. We used to
go on horseback, in the big wagon, or
on foot. Now we go in top buggies,
in automobiles or on the cars. We
used to have few books, the weekly
paper and some people no paper at all.
We now have free libraries. the daily
paper, free mail delivery and the
telephone. Businessmen and breeders
have got to hustle now to what they
did thirty years ago Big manufac-
turers send their agents to solicit trade
and find market for their goods, and
believe we farmers and breeders of
this association have got to do some of
that kind Of hustling. The Short-Horn
breeders association sends Col. Harris
and II. +. Brown to Mexico to look for
trade for the Short-Horn cattle bust
ness, and l believe the day is here
when this association must hustle to
sell our surplus stuff to the best advan-
fan