Success is often the baby of failure, tough going and hard times — in short, perhaps better called adversity. The contribution made by Travers Smith to the revolutionizing of the cattle industry in North America through his introduction of the Simmental breed, which proved so successful that it precipitated the stampede into Exotics — was not an exception.
The writer was Manager of a Credit Union and well acquainted with Travers’ banker across the street, but as the old gag goes, “he held no hard feelings against us for keeping him in the cattle business.” I was also in cattle in a small way, and we often discussed the adversities of the business, the virtues of the native breeds — and lack of them — and how to make a living out of a beautiful, big, fat “ideal” Hereford cow that turned in a scrawny 350 pound calf at weaning time. Well, Travers’ contention was that the “egg heads” were all wrong. Presumptuous, of course. Generations of “improvement in the breed” through the theory that the prettiest cow was necessarily the most valuable had downgraded our native breeds to a financial catastrophe. Travers’ contention was that judges of cattle shows should have been judging Miss America contests. Judging cattle by type instead of performance was our ruination, and he found something right at that time to back him up.
The writer, as well as H. J. Blackmore, friend and neighbor, had done some A.I. crossbreeding with Brown Swiss. “Jim” had a three-quarter Brown Swiss bull calf that showed such phenomenal growth that he asked Travers to weigh him with a bunch Travers had on test out of the best Herefords he could find. Result — the ¾ Brown Swiss x ¼ Hereford March calf weaned 878 pounds on November 14, and the heaviest calf Travers had weaned 525 pounds.
Charolais had opened up imports from France the year before. It was January in ‘66. It was a typical day for chewing the fat — there wasn’t much on the cows — but there is always a bit of time for what is better known in the cattle industry as “shooting the bull,” and we decided in that little bull session to shoot off an application to Ottawa and see if a Brown Swiss Bull wasn’t just as importable as a Charolais.
This letter was just being sealed up and stamped the next day when in comes Travers with a full head of steam. “Hold everything, we’ve got the wrong breed. That application should be for a Simmental.” “A what?” says I. “Say man this application is for an import from France, a cattle import, not from South Africa. Simmental — that’s some kind of Gazelle, isn’t it?” “Look,” says Travers, “I didn’t know any more about them than you do till I picked up this magazine today, and here’s an article by Charley Redd, and another by Bert Hargraves, that just happens to say that Simmentals are the best damn cattle in all of Europe, if not the world.”
I grabbed my dictionary — nothing. I grabbed an encyclopedia — nothing. Oh, yes! just over the page under dairy cattle was one sentence. It said something like “a dual purpose breed native to Switzerland.” “Umph,” I said. “Those two guys should know what they’re talking about even if the encyclopedia doesn’t. We’ll never get a permit any way, so here goes,” and the letter headed for Ottawa for a permit to import one Simmental Bull, whatever that might be.
That was that. No answer — in fact we forgot about it until the middle of June. Travers dropped in one day and I said, “Didn’t those guys in Ottawa ever reply to the application we sent off?” “Never a word,” says he. “Well, I’ll be! — I’ll bet we can write a letter they will reply to anyway.” And we did.
Two days later Travers got, a telephone call from Ottawa with apologies and the information that due to an error, his permit application had been overlooked but had been granted. He had until August the 8th to have his calf in farm quarantine in France. Not much time. Five thousand bucks quick, and something to back it up with as needed, and a bull required within less than six weeks. We had no problem with money at the time, not having any. We just decided to raise $500.00 each and get the same amount from a like number of friends, and we were in business.
Travers had contacted Charley Redd previously and he had said, “If you ever get a permit, I want to pick the bull for you.” So Travers got on the phone. No dice. Charley Redd’s calendar was full, so Travers booked the next suitable reservation he could get, as I recall it, for Berne, Switzerland. Switzerland wasn’t open at the time for export, but he wanted a look at the native breed in the country of origin. He told me later that he got acquainted with the Swiss Cattle Breeders’ Federation officials, and then crossed the border into France.
Enter PARISIEN, The Simmental sire of sires, the only million dollar bull in North America. Travers hunted the country for an available bull calf under nine months of age, which had not been vaccinated for foot and mouth disease, both requirements for export. He finally found one, just barely in time to meet the deadline for entering quarantine. It was Parisien or nothing. So that was it. A curious combination of circumstances, luck, tenacity, judgment, courage, and adherence to an idea and an ideal — better cattle.
As anybody knows who has imported cattle from Europe over the years, cattle, like people, fed on and by bureaucracy, don’t seem to thrive. Parisian arrived in April of 1967, a long geared, well spotted, leggy, THIN critter, but growthy. Travers pulled him into Cardston, Alberta about noon one day, and the “knowing” cattlemen had themselves a good laugh. He was promptly dubbed “The red and white Holstein.”
There have been a lot of laughs since that time — cattlemen counting profits from Simmental.
THANKS, TRAVERS, AND A TRIBUTE TO YOU FOR YOUR IDEA AND YOUR IDEALS.
