The St. Johns herald., 1889-04-11

fat COWS and heifers. The same con ditions are more than true of Kan sas City and St. Louis, while at Omaha the percentage is nearly as great.
 November and January are fair representative months for the year, showing, if any difference, a less number of COWS than the average for the other months. Here, then, including the local butchers stuff and the eastern shipments, is over forty-fve per cent of the Chicago receipts for 1887 and 1888 she cat tie, or 2,247,O97 COWS out of the to- tai receipts of 1, ,993, ,551 head. Dur ing the period over 85 per cent of all the cattle killed by the local butchers in the states west of Chi cago have been COWS and heifers. a fact no person from Texas to Mani toba, who is familiar with the butch CTS work will dispute. To compute the number of COWS thus dispossd of IS beyond our ability, but that it reaches way over a million head there can be no doubt. Adding these local slaughterings to the she cattle received at the great markets and it must be true that somewhere between sixty-fve and seventy per cent of all the cattle killed during the past two and fourth years, west of Chicago, have been COWS.
 These COWS have not all gone from the open ranges of the west. The farmers of all the states have sent in theirs for the reason that they could sec no money in holding on. Look over any farming community in Illinois, Missouri or other of the western states and you will find the number of COWS reduced, generally, from thirty to seventy-fve per cent. In fact, the selling of this class of cattle has been confined to no sec- ton, but is as wide as the stock raising area.
 The result of all this has been the placing on the consuming mar kets of the country an increase of 164 per cent of beef during the years 1887 and 1888 over and above the increase of population. As consequence values declined until the margin of profit in production has been wiped out and producers are sick at heart.
 Now look at the other side. While the increase in marketing has been 161 per cent each year the increase in percentage of COWS has been over fifty per cent. Deduct the one from the other and we see that had the marketing been confined to the steer products there would have been an actual decline in receipts of 334 per cent. The truth, then, is, that to-day there are not she cat tie in the United States sufficient to produce within 338 per cent of the beef being sold on our markets. In other words, if she cattle were wholly withdrawn from the beef markets for thirty days it would be discovered that there was a decline in receipts of 334 per cent and in consequence of this an advance of two dollars a hundred in market values. Immec lately the local butchers would be unable to buy COWS for slaughter, and as steers would have to be taken in their stead another decrease in market offerings would follow and this would cause still further advances in prices. Sixty days under this plan would demonstrate that over marketing and not over-production is ''what's the matter" and increase the value of herds to such an ex- tent that the steer portion would bring more money than the entire herd is now worth.
 The above are not mere asser- tions they are facts capable of easy | ,.,11 4o1 {