The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1884-11-26
stock breeding VS.. Grain Raising.

A farmer who for a long term of
years has a good paying crop four
seasons out of five may consider
himself in average luck, and this
fact has induced many to turn their
attention from grain growing to dai-
ry farming. Though the price OF
butter and cheese are subject to very
wide fluctuations, it is not often that
a farmer, having once embarked IN
dairy farming, ever goes back to the
growing of grain for the market. In
view of the present demand for beef
cattle however, it seems somewhat
surprising that a greater number OF
farmers do not turn their attention
to stock breeding. Beef is COM
modify with which it would seem
impossible to glut the market. AS
the quality improves the consump-
ton increases, and if its price de-
clines prceptibly it straightway be-
gins to take the place of some other
staple article of food, so that its con-
tinuence is Immediately and in most
cases permanently rendered broader.
Why it is the farmers will. year
after year, go on cropping their
farms 20 death, and reaping very
meager returns till they or their
children are driven into other lines
of business, while the old homestead
is reduced to all but a desert, is diff
ficult to determine. The establish
ment of cheese factories has done
much to correct or rather lessen the
tendency toward over cropping, but
even dairy farming is not so well
calculated to restore land to state
of fertility as is stock raising. The
manure frem herd of cattle amply
compensates the land for all that the
cattle can by any possible means
take from it, while experience has
always shown that those farms
whose only marketed product is
live stock steadily increases in fertil-
ity.
The results of grain farming and
stock farming may be summed up
as follows: The grain farmer spends
his energies in getting all he can out
of his land during the short space
intervening between the beginning
of springs work and the end Of har-
vest, or perhaps he nav have a few
acres of wheat, which he sows in the
fall, and after sprouting waits till
the advent of spring to renew , its
growth. In any event his farm lies
unproductive during the greater
portion of the year, while his taxes,
the interests on his investments, and
his family and household expenses,
are going on all the time. And with
all this, his farm is every day becom-
ing less productive.
The stock-breeder has his work at
his hand the whole year around.
Some fields must be cropped with
coarse grains for winter feed, and
these are more than re-fertilized by
the product of manure every year.
These fields have to be cultivated by
the farmer, but his pasture lands on
ly require cultivation at long inter
walls, while, as for the rest of the
work, the herd manures the land,
reaps the crop and carries it to mar
ket. The crop of the intelligent and
thrifty stock farmer is growing from
the lst of January to the 31st Of De-
cember, night and day, hour by
hour. increasing in value, while ev-
cry year sees his farm more produc-
tiye and breeding herd more richly
bred and valuable.
1t is not necessary for the farmer
of small means who would turn his
attention to dairying to have herd
of Jerseys, Holsteins, Frisesians to
start with, nor for him who would
breed beef cattle to make his COM
mencement with polled Angus,
Herefords or short horns. He car
make beginning with what he hap
pens to have, and improve his herd
just as rapidly as his means will
permit him to do so. In the fan
northwestern Territories some full
blooded and pretty thoroughly un-
civilized Indians are wealthy stock
owners, and there are certainly few
Canadian farmers who are not in q
position to make as extensive begin.
nings as they did.-Canadion Stock
RreeIe,-