To understand the cattle business we must understand the fundamental principles upon which the various kinds of cattle are built. Hereford cattle, for instance, are a pure beef type. The beef animal is trained and perfected in the tendency to save everything to itself and to load up with fat and muscle. Some Hereford cows can hardly raise their calves because of the tendency of the mother to save all her nourishment for her own strength and protection. The cow boys on the range rarely think of milking a cow that has lost her calf. The typical beef animals give so little milk that they can go dry at any time even on good grass with little or no injury to themselves. Some dairy cows would die even though sucked by a big husky calf if they were not milked, because they give so much more than the calf could take. The dairy cow is bred and trained for generations to digest all she can and to give it all away, keeping nothing with which to protect herself against hard times. She builds no big muscles with which to climb mountains, or wade through mud and snow drifts. The beef animal if treated like a dairy cow simply gets fat and is finally turned to the butcher. The dairy cow treated like a beef cow is a tragedy to behold. I have seen both Holstein and Jersey steers out on the range where Hereford cattle stay fat and strong and I have heard the cow boys cuss about letting them live, for they were more of a ghost than a reality. Cussed they were by men and God-forsaken, so it would seem. Since even the steers can not protect themselves to live where the Herefords will thrive, what can we ever expect of a producing cow? When she has given all away then goes up against the period of short pasture or semi-starvation, she begins immediately to readjust to meet the new conditions. But the work of generations can not be undone in a life time and she fails to meet the emergency and loses the vitality she naturally possesses.