The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1914-04-03
BETTER BEEF AND DAIRY CATTLE
Well Written Article by H. 7. Morgan
in The Country Gentleman.

The dual-purpose idea-the growing
of animals that will profitably pro-
duce both beef and milk-has met
with rather violent opposition in this
country for many years, but now
seems to be a disposition on the part
of farmers and economists to investi-
gate a bit more carefully. The i'm
preston is gaining ground that the
opposition in part at least, may have
arisen from self-interest. Time and
again advocates of the special pur-
pose beef and dairy herds have dis
posed of the question to their own
satisfaction, but still it will not down.
At the recent International Live
| stock Exposition | met farmer from
Colorado one day in the barn set aside
| for milking Shorthorns. TO get his
views | took the negative side of the
/ proposition and opened with the usual
remark that 'dual-purpose cattle can
not be bred; they fail to transmit both
heavy milking and good fleshing quail
tiles to their progeny"
Il came a good many hundred miles
to see this show, particularly to see
cattle of this type-the milking Short
horns and the Red Poland" he re-
plleu Il believe this question has
reached a show down. Out in my
country we used to keep a COW merely
to ral,s a calf each year-and lots of
years sue CiGn't do it. But we made
some money.
Now conditions out there have
! greatly changed; our land is much
more valuable. We have irrigated
much of it and grow big crops of al
falfa. So we have got to keep COWS
tp Of How,
ue into concentrated products of high
market value. We have to keep them
to maintain the fertility of the soil We
want COW to reproduce herself each
year and to produce milk and cream
for the market. Then finally we can
sell her to the butcher at a good
price This man surely drew a good
likeness of a dual-purpose COW in des-
cribing the sort they need out in his
part of the country
IF dual-purpose COWS have great
merit" say the skeptics, why are not
more of them bred in this country?'
| believe there is logical answer to
that question. We must realize that
the country has been undergoing a
great change in the last fifteen or
twenty years. Prices of lands have
almost doubled in many sections
land values have trebled in the past
ten years. Prices of grains and mill
feeds have almost doubled in the same
period.
/ Fifteen years ago not much atten-
ton was paid to the productive capac-
ity of the COW. If she produced some
milk besides raising calf she was
considered satisfactory animal
Twenty years ago our mothers sold
butter at from fifteen to twenty cents
a pound and made as much net profit
as their soEs now selling butterfat
at thirty-three cents a pound. Twenty
years ago a good steak could be bought
for twelve and a half cents pound
now we pay twenty-five to thirty cents
for the same kind.
: During the period of low prices
but little attention was paid to inn
provement through breeding-I am
speaking now of general averages
The special purpose breeds were COM
ing into prominence about the time
! land and grain values began to go up
and the good Shorthorns, mostly
: grades, of course, We're more or less
neglected as regards mating for bott
/ milk and meat production