Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1921-04-15
Cattle Spectators Denounced b!
w. F. Schilling

w. F. Schilling
That the purebred livestock indus
try's hope lies in maintaining prices
at figures farmers can pay is the
point emphasized in an article by w.
F. Schilling, of Mortified, entitled,
Inflated Purebreds," which appeared
in a recent issue of the Country
Gentleman, Americas leading farm
periodical.
Declaring that the time has come
when breeders of purebred livestock
in America must face certain facts
which threaten the growth and well
fare of their business, Mr.. Schilling
heartily denOunces the "speculator"
in the business. He writes, "Specu-
lation becomes threat too serious to
pass over. 1t leads to fixed sales, to
padded tests, to abuses of many sorts,
with which all breeders are fami-
liar"
Further on in the article Mr..
Schilling says: "In a measure the
buying public is to blame for inf1a-
ton of purebred prices. Men have
given too ready an ear to the get
rich-quick scheme that it had largely
become prior to the recent smash of
prices. They should have known
that, outside the occasional animals
of real high worth, the whole thing
was gamble depending for it's life
on the ability to unload fictitiously
priced stuff on any victim who could
be made to believe in his power to
do the same thing with another
earnest seeker after sudden money.
It ought to be kindergarten clear that
the only basis on which the pure
bred business can endure is that of
steady outlet to the nations farms
and that outlet cannot be maintained
when prices are above a level which
can be paid by market production.
There have all along been plenty of
breeders who gave full honest value
for every dollar they took and who
sold at prices a farmer can pay.
II see no hope for any breeder to
build a permanent success unless he
does sell at such prices, with the ex-
structive breeders of a high degree
of skill who produce animals of great
merit and individuality. These men
are entitled to rewards in keeping
with their service, which is to SUD-
ply superior stock for the smaller
breeders of the country. Once in a.
while a smaller breeder, too, may
produce such an animal, and when
he does he also is entitled to the re-
ward.
But all this is aside from my
point that the greatest market for
purebred stock must be the farms Of
the country and must be maintained
by prices farmers can pay, And let
me say that it is possible to build
far more profitable business on this
market in the long run than can be
conducted on the methods of the
speculator or gambler.
"If the reader will pardon person
alities, can perhaps make this point
clearer by referring to my own ex-
perience at Northfield, MINI. have
been nineteen years in the purebred
Holstein business, and the highest I
ever paid for an animal was S1,O25.
Yet I have bred two COWS that held
state records and sold to E. G.
Schroeder, of Moorhead, Mimi, from
which were produced three COWS that
made twenty-three of the winning
animals at the Minnesota State Fair
in one season were of my breeding.
I set this down merely as evidence of
the fact that success in breeding
business is not necessarily predicated
on the possession of a young fortune
to start with. My sales of stock last
year totaled $4,000, and this sum
was made up of sales that ran for
the most part around $500 to $3.50
head.
price and pedigree have been
altogether too much accepted as
criteria of value instead of individi-
uality and performance. There has
been far too much of the practice of
buying a good high-bred bull, breed
ing anything and everything to him
and selling his sons as hard headers,
regardless of individuality and fit
ness to reproduce. Some breeders
have not culled close enough. They
have sold stuff for breeding stock
that should have gone to slaughter.
This is a practice of the gambler who
endeavors to dazzle the purchaser
with a pedigree that may sound i'm
posing and yet mean no more than a
paragraph from an almanac.
''It may sound imposing to set
down that an animal is the sister to
the brother of the dam of the dam
of the same animal whose name sends
thrill down the spine of every lover
of good stock but as one cartoonist
says, 1T doesn't mean anything A
pedigree of this sort as long as your
arm cannot save a poor one.
"Thru such pedigrees and thru the