The Mountainair independent., 1919-11-13

market While others sell at low prices
Why are some consumers willing to
pay 60 cents pound for prime b eff
steak while they would reject from
their table inferior steak at half the
price? Why is it that some feeders
finish their cattle or other animal
more rapidly and economically than
their associates?
Usually because blood will tell"
breeding always achieve the more
creditable performances, be it in the
show ring, at the fair, in the feed
lot, on the range, or at the butchers
block Pur bred aristocracy is net
nearly extensive enough in the United
States and with a view to extending
the kith and kin Of the first families
widely over the country, the United
States Department of Agriculture is
launching it's drive for better live
stock, which was inaugurated October
1st
Purebred live stock is not the result
of foihle and fancy of the rich, for
the lCading foundation families of the
various breeds, for the most part
have been produced and developed by
practical farmers who farmed for a
living in either the Old or the New
World. For example, Hugh Watson
the founder of the Aberdeen Angus
was a tenant farmer; Charles and
Ceilings, who sponsored the Short
horn breed, were English countrymen
Of medium finances, while the Tom
kins and the Hewers, who were tn
fosterers Of the Whiteface in Here
fordshira, England, were merely
working to produce beef animals of
superior type which would fatten
mere quickly and cheaper than their
predecessor In a word, purebred
live stock from hogs, cattle sheep
horses aGd dairy COWS to goats and
poultry, have all been developed for
! specific purposes, which are intimate
ly associated with the stock farmers
needs and requirements.
Uncle Sans big drive for better
live stock similarly is a campaign to
provide for direct and urgent needs.
| Farmers with surplus feed should de-
sire live stock of the best type which
will most proftably and economically
convert these grain and forage sur
pluSos into meat, milk, wool, mOhair
and eggs. Eliminating the scrub
and mOngrel animal, live stock of mo
account family or breeding is one of
the greatest Improvement steps which
. possibly could be undertaken by the
live stock breeding and raising fra
trinity Of this country. Uncle Sam
is enthusiastically behind the project
and it remains for farmers interested
in stock raising throughout the coun-
try, not only to boost for better stock.
but also to buy and use farm animals
Of approved type and breeding, in or
der that our present live stock popu-
lation, heterogeneous, herum-scarum,
and topsy-turvy as it is, may be re-
/ placed by superior animals of type
and breeding best fitted to supply the
market and most suitable to consume
profitably the surplus crops of tho
American farmer
Just to illustrate thai it is about as
easy to discount the benefits of good
Hood in livestock breeding as it is to
try to dry up the ocean with a sponge,
here are some figures concerning the
/ hatcher standards of a good and
medium steer In tha case of a good
steer the loin cuts, which are high
priced constitute 16 ga per cent by
weight as compared with Is 1-2 per
cent in q medium steer The rib
cuts compose ga per cent in the
better class of steer and only "a
per cent in the medium animal. The
round which is a medium priced cut,
constitutes Il per cent in a good
steer and 26 1-2 per cent in a medium
steer, while the chuck, a low priced
cut, compOses "a per cent of the good
steer and q "a per cent of the med
ium steer. The miscellaneous cuts
in the good steer aggregate 13 per
cent and only II per cent in the med
ium steer These figures indicate
that the good steer carries a greater
percentage of the high priced cuts
and lower percentage of the med
ium priced and cheap cuts than does
the medium steer although the ami
mails may be fed similar rations This
divergence in meat makeup at mar
ket time must be attributed to bre d.
ing.