Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1869 [PAGE 292]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

278

DISCUSSION ON CATTLE.

The lecturer appointed to talk on Cattle did not make his ap pearance. The following discussion was had upon the subject: Dr. MORSE—I have looked forward to the time for the lectun on cattle with much interest, perhaps with more interest than tha of any other lecture in this course, and consequently I feel a grea disappointment that the lecture has failed. I wish, in the few re marks that I shall make, only to say something that will draw ou discussion on this subject. I endeavored to show in my lecture last week that the cultiva tion of grass was very important. It is a crop too much neglectec in the State of Illinois, in favor of grain growing. We endeav ored to show that there was a downward tendency in this kind o: farming. The remedy is a resort to grass growing. It is an old adage and has much of truth in it—" No grass, no cattle; no cattle, no manure; no manure, no crops." We certainly need, then, cattle, in order to convert grass into beef, butter and cheese, and also to convert grass into manure, that the fertility of the soil may be kept up, insuring good crops. 'Now there may be, and we think there is, too little attention given to the care of cattle. Even where men keep stock, they are negligent and careless in their attention to them. In many quarters there is carelessness on the subject of breeding. A farmer has twenty or thirty head of cattle, and gives no attention to the manner of breeding. The bulls used are such as come up by accident. A youug animal has been, from neglect, allowed to grow up a bull, and this is the animal used for propagating his stock. This is all wrong, and the degeneracy of the stock will sooner or later show it to be wrong. Now we have established improved breeds of cattle, and we can propagate the good qualities of individual stock. "We can propagate any qualities desired, even to that of color. If you have a bull of good stock, whose mother was a good milker, you will have good cows for milk. I would not take the scrub bull for nothing, when a good bull could be had for twenty dollars. I would consider it a disgrace to accept of the services of one of these animals. Every man should select his breed with reference to the object he has in view in growing stock.