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Show "VI WHAT'S THE USE. We arc annually paying tribute to the genius and foresight of European stock breeder's to the extent of several sev-eral million dollars. We go to Scotland Scot-land for the Clydesdale horse, to France for the Pcrchcron and the French Coach, and to England for the Shire, etc., writes the Professor of Veterinary Science, Colorado Agricultural Ag-ricultural College. This in itself is not so bad, provided we make the bQSt usjJje, br.eds. afterf we ?$ them, tfo country on earth has better bet-ter natural conditions for making and perfecting high class breeds of live stock than this, ?nd yet it is a fact that aside from the American trotting horse and a breed or two of pigs and chickens, wc have never produced in the entire history of this country one single pure breed of live stock. The Yankee who enjoys the reputation the world over for his keen business instinct has in this respect gained the unenviable reputation of being the rankest kind of a sucker. We go across the water and pay thousands of ddllars for pure bred sires, bring them over here, and thoughtlessly mate them with marcs of every known breed without ever a thought of purjty of blood or the ultimate establishing es-tablishing of pure -breeds at home. All sorts of crosses have been made in this way and the result is that we have a heterogeneous mixture, lacking lack-ing in uniformity, and a large percentage per-centage of them without merit. As a result again of this foolish practice we have a superabundance of horses without any particular qualities of excellence, which go on the market ' as general purpose horses and command com-mand the lowest price in every market. mar-ket. Out of this heterogeneous collection col-lection of nonentities there arc, of course, a few surprisingly good individuals; indi-viduals; but the males should never be used for breeding purposes, as they lack in prepotency, or power to transmit their desirable characteristics character-istics to their offspring. The marc3 may- be profitably bred, but adways with the view of grading up by successive suc-cessive top crossing with pure bred sires of the same breed. Five such crosses arc supposed practically to obliterate the native blood, and according ac-cording to some of the stud books, produce what is known as pure bred horses. In general, our farmers arc quite particular about the breed and points of excellence of the horse used as sire, but the mistake has been in not persisting in using sircs of one breed and of cpwl excellence unil purity of blood, a greater degree of prepotency, and a uniform excellence of offspring arc sect' ', The other day I was riding on the range with an excellent stock raiser of the Western slope. I noticed 4g- tegm& feu!! riinninyith a. hcr of Hereford cows and asked for an explanation. I was informed that the Hcrcfords were weak in one point of conformation, and in order to improve im-prove the herd a Shorthorn bull strong in this particular had been secured se-cured to get an average of the tvo extremes. The experience of careful K breeders everywhere has been that I this plan will not succeed. It is, for I example, as erroneous in theory and I fruitless in practice as that of cross- i ing a marc having cycle-shaped hind legs with a horse having straight I hind legs, expecting that the off- 1 spring will be an average of the two parents. This is hot nature's method. Perfection is not secured by two imperfections, im-perfections, and all efforts in this direction di-rection will be disastrous in the extreme. ex-treme. The better plan 13 to castrate the stallion and breed) the marc to as perfect a horse as can be found. What is the use, then, after having made a gopd start by infusing pure blood for thc first cross, of spoiling it aU by changing to some other cross. Why not follow some concerted con-certed plan in the grading up operation opera-tion until a reputation has been established es-tablished for horses of real merit? |