Arizona republican., 1896-03-11
ARIZONA STOCK FEEDING Beef Making in This
 Valley. High Local Importance of the
 Industry.

Sixty Thousand Acres of Alfalfa
 Where Is Produced .he Coun-
 try's Meat.
 The leading industry of the Salt River valley of Arizona is the rearing and fattening of beef cattle.
 This may appear to be a return to days of the cowboy are not yet gone and may appear strange to those who believe that the production of oranges and ap- ricots led all other employments of the rural population. But of the or ange orchards are but 1900 acres, most of them as yet unproductive, while of alfalfa fields, green and fresh, fully 60,000 acres stretch away almost con- tiguous from Peoria on the west to far beyond Mesa on the east. Alfalfa means beef. The haystacks are put on legs and thus moved to market. Every acre is capable of supporting and fat ltening two prime steers, though less than half the acreage is given up as yet to the industry. Every year the advantages of the valley in this re- spect are becoming more fully known and alfalfa in the stack or on the ground is ever most salabie. The cattle this season, to the num- Der of about 50,000, head, come from all over the southwest. Several train loads came from Sonora, thousands came from Tonto Basin and the rest from all over Arizona. Now not a third of the number remains, for at least cattle train a day has gone out loaded with beeves for eastern and Pacific markets. In about six weeks the roundups. or 'trodeos'' will be in progress all over southern and central Arizona and from the hills will come long droves of wild range cattle gath cred at the branding time, driven here to be fattened for the use of man. Just now the alfalfa is getting low, but grazing on the great fields of volun- i teer grain ekes out the supply of feed I most satisfactorily. T1a Perhaps a score of cattle buyers are | now in the valley, for here is now the best field on the coast for securing good
 
 has drawn her entire beef supply from Tempe and Phoenix and alfalfa fed beef has attained high renown for ! flavor and tenderness.
 1 This is due especially to the rapidity | with which the flesh is formed, four months on alfalfa being all that are | necessary to transform the range 1 "long-horn' into a sleek and we'll larded beefer
 Prices for fat cattle are rising rap | idly. From cents beef on foot has risen to $2.50, with $2.75 asked, and with prospect of $3 before the sum- mer is here. A raise of 40 cents per hundred has occurred in Chicago with i in the past two weeks. At present prices this means about $6.25 left in the valley for every carload shipped. The local market for beef is not by any means small one. About twenty head a day of prime cattle are killed. averaging about $50 pounds net on the block, or about a pound of beef per diem to every individual of poulation. Thus something like S8,000 a month is retained at home to the profit of the farmer and local business man. To this also should be added a daily con- sumption of forty head of sheep, av- eraging fifty pounds net, and twenty five head of hogs, Gncluding packing houses) averaging 225 pounds The killing is done at five slaughter houses and ten butcher shops supply the pop ulace.
 i Prescott, Tucson, Yuma and all the other larger towns of the territory are supplied with Salt River valley beef. Denver is also this year a very con siderable customer, one shipment of forty-five carloads going out about two weeks ago for that point.
 h the matter of sheep, it is practi- cally impossible to estimate the num- 1 Der. Thousands upon thousands are now being herded on the slopes of the foothills, near to water in the northern part of the Salt River valley and there they will be kept till lambins and Shearing are past, when they will be moved northward into the mountain ranges, to return again next winter. Only a few thousand are kept up on ) alfalfa, and those are mainly kept for local consumption. Much in the same category with the sheep are about
 5000 head of goats that are said to
 ofttimes eke out the supply of ''mut- ton," though in no wise unsatisfac- torily.
 The valley is full of hogs, which are marketed, however only in the fall
 and early winter. They grow and ma 5 ture on alfalfa, but about August are
 penned, when destined for the winter 3 market, and fed on barley, or are 5 quietly and compactly herded on the
 stubble fields
 5 This article has quoted few figures
 Let him who is interested take up his s nencil and caIculatA fnr a Mhiln am