Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

herd out of its
to use.
AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING 499
mediocre rut and will not be too expensive
Distribute good bulls on the common herds in the
country. It is a pretty difficult thing for people to do that
in the purebred business. It is not an easy thing for me to
make a campaign for good bulls and get them distributed
over the grade herds of the country by persuading grade
men that I am solely interested in them as breeders of
better cattle. A grade man will say, "If he is interested
in me, why doesn't he give me a bull?" I did do that
last year.
Last year was a bad one for us in the bull business.
Up at Lake Mills, Wisconsin, where my breeding
goes on, it is a great Holstein country. All my bulls are
worked off by people passing through that section of the
country. They are worth from $150 to $200 and they
go off to grade herds. Last year I must have had twelve
yearlings left, and I never had a yearling on the place before.
I did n't know what to do with them. Well, I have
a cousin who is interested in grades. I wanted to send
these yearlings on to Chicago. He wanted to ship them
to Chicago for beef. I would n't do that. I thought the
matter over. Finally I decided to distribute them on the
grade herds, and then, after they had done all the good
they could, my cousin could beef them and take what there
was in them. If we can't sell our bulls, we ought to give
them away. It is better for me to give my bulls to my
neighbor than to have him drag along and not improve
his cattle.
But after all, all joking aside, don't you see that the
real gist of the matter is right there ; that we must improve
the herds of cattle in order to be able to meet the increased
demand, if we are going to whip up this demand? It is
the small herd that is in question. We can improve those
only by good bulls. Who is going to distribute them?
It seems to me that the only possible way in which this is
going to be solved is by having some disinterested party.