The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1909-01-28
ERIoA's ANNUAL ADDRESS
President of Live Stock Offers Some
Suggestions Concerning the Sale

At the first meeting OF the mem
bers OF the Live Stock Breeders AS
ISOLATION in the Mitchell Club rooms
Tuesday evening President llrion
made his annual address, which is
given below in full:
Annual Address
Gentlemen OF the Associations:
Our program calls for an annual
address by your humble servant for
the sixth consecutive time, which
the entire life of our associa-
ton.
| speak truthfully when | say that
this annual address stunt has be-
come more or less monotonous to me.
and which must be becoming tire
some to you. A mar once said .he
could live on beans three meals a
day for ninety or a hundred days but
to have them for a regular diet he
thought he would lose mis- relish for
1t Is not my purpose on this oc-
caslon to attempt anything like a
formal, studied address, in which L
might tell you many things you al
ready know, or possibly a few things
you have not, in your busy every
day life, taken time to think of for
yourselves.
prefer, on the contrary, to take
up only a few minutes of time which
can be put to better use, to call your
to a few features of the
business side of our association work,
which present themselves to me as
l play my part in the machinery of
management of the work.
AT our organization meeting six
years ago it was decided, and l think
wisely, too, to hold a two-day sale
of stock in conjunction with our an
nual meeting as a sort of object les
son adjunct, not particularly as a
money making scheme, nor did we
desire it to become a money losing
scheme.
This plan has been carried out
each year, and l think l may say
comparatively successfully, consider
ing the fact that we were all begin
ners in such an undertaking. l say
comparatively successful. or course
mistakes ave been made. In many
instances 1 think they were made
%ignorantly and such cases are more
e%Xcusable than if made Intentionally.
In fact, if made Intentionally, they
are not e%Xcusable at all.
| venture the assertion that not
a single breeder of either hogs or
cattle, that has attended each of
these sales, whether he was a con-
tributor Or not, but more especially
ii he has been a contributors, but
what will bear me out in the state
ment is that he has gained know
ledge of what constitutes d good in
dividual, that he las learned how to
fit, feed and produce a better animal
than he could have learned in any
other way at a much greater cost.
Therefore, l say, these sales are
themselves beneficial. This
statement is also proven by the vcr-
dict of shippers of market stock. L
am told by a number of shippers
the quality of the general
of market stock has improved in the
past few years at least forty per-
cent. This is evidently attributable
to the influence of the dispersion of
pure-bred stock at this and other
sales of like stock throughout the
state.
But 1 am convinced that we are
making a mistake in our sale, and
quicker a mistake is detected
and rectitied, the better it is for US.
In Jul cattle Offering, the general
trend and inclination is to run it
to too much bull Offering. True, a
pure bred sire is eminently the
proper thing to use, but a pure bred
sire alone can produce nothing but
grade. If a pure bred sire en-
hances the value of grade stock, why
put a check valve on him and pre-
vent him creating more of his own
kind. Specifically, the mistake we
are making is that we are not offer
ing at least fifty per cent of the sale
n females. You may ask "how are
to get at that percentage where
or fifty breeders are contri-
buting, each unbeknown to the
That's easy. Let every breed
ar contributing two animals, consign
one male and one female. If allowed
to enter four head, two of each. If
he is allowed to enter three head,
and is tempted to put in two males
and one female, convert the poorest
into a steer and bring him
along and L will guarantee that he
will bring more than he would as a
bull if We run our sales exclusively
to a bull sale.
There is reason as we'll as logic
in this matter. First, no man can
establish a herd of pure breds with
out females. AS we4l talk of a man
establishing a home and rearing a
and at the same time remain
ing single. The more pure bred
herds, even though small, the more
pure bred sires VIII be in demand,
and consequently better prices paid.
Our bulls in former sales have lot
commanded their worth because of
the fact that they were taken largely
for grading purposes.
The second proposition in the pre-
misses is this: buyers are onto their
job" With an excessive bull offer
ing they start in to beat prices down
because they know the las end of
the sale will go cheaply. We can t
blame them. We would probably
do the same thing.