ow that it has
been done at a splendid profit.

You begin your problem with a tick-wide eradication law, which Texas has
only had a very short time. You begin it at a time when the Government
and most of the tick-infested states are releasing thousands of square
miles every year, and at a time when both science and every practical
observer understands it as an economic measure, which may be pursued
with practically no detriment or danger to the cattle. I think that we
probably dipped in the neighborhood of a million cattle, considering the
number of times that they were dipped, and we did not lose a total of
fifty head from all causes.

Eradication means larger cattle in better condition on the same feeds
and a less mortality. It means that they can go anywhere in America
without restriction; or, in other words, a broader market and no
punishment just before shipment. I do not think that the perpetuity of
the tick can be defended from any economic standpoint.

I want to take up the breeding section, first with reference to what
your cattle represent and a comparison with primitive cattle in other
countries. I am advised on reliable authority that forty years ago the
only ready money in this country came from the cattle men who either
topped their bulls and took them to Cuba, or the Cubans came here and
topped them, taking the very best sires that you produced for sport and
slaughter. You have, therefore, for forty years been grading down, as
far as the sire is concerned.

In the matter of the cows, there has been no culling, added to which
there has been in-breeding, and on both the sire and dam side following
out the law that evil qualities intensify in posterity, the tendency has
been down instead of up in the breeding of native cattle for forty
years, to which the only relief has been a very limited introduction of
the beef strains.

In addition to this, the cattle have been infested with ticks, and every
evil influence that could arrest their development seems to have had a
good chance at them, and yet in spite of all this I find them on the
whole much better than I had expected.

I have been trying to make a comparison between them and the primitive
cattle of Texas, which I have known for fifty years, as they were
pastured next to my father's farm in great quantities when I was only
seven years old and long before there was any process of improvement. I
think the Texas cattle had greater scale, but from all