The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-05

| ally at least. by the free pasturagt cost of production. Perhaps the con | siderable rise of prices during 18S: may be accounted for by the first tim, l becoming aware that the food cost o beef and not the free pasture cost mus henceforth rule.
 The production of beef cattle is cut down by the spread of the dairy in. dustry-still another cause whose full | scope is not yet in sight. All along | east of the free pasture belt are small | herders who few years ago were herders and nothing more, but are now
 to considerable extent producers oi butter fat. The great majority to
 date milk beef breeds, their main in- | terest stili being the production of beet | stock: but this, think, Is rapidly
 changing, the dairy profit being found greater than the other. As this goes
 on many of these will buy Jersey in-
 stead of Hereford bulls and cease rais- ing beef altogether.
 There is equal progress in breeding
 methods. Hand breeding Is more and
 more practiced. The difficulty of this but ways will be invented to
 make 1t possible and greatly possible as well, though vast saving in l place of the present wholesale waste occurring in animal vitality at breed ing time.
 As some beef farmers are eking out their profits by producing cream. so dairy farmers are learning how they may advantageously raise beeves on the side. so to speak. Ordinarily milk cows. though very good. unless so good that milk stock calves from them are likely to be valuable, are bred to beef L- oping beef carcasses practically as per- feet as if of pure Hereford blood. The spread of veterinary science and skill will no doubt in the course of a few years enable us to keep alive and to fit for the market thousands of cat tie now carried off by disease. Improvement is perhaps even more telling in modes of feeding stock, a given amount of food made to go a greater way than formerly. I am not to give away secrets, but may assure you that the steer. Challenger, which
 won the beef sweepstakes recently at Chicago, probably owed his victory more to feeding than to blood, which you will appreciate on being told that he was not at least one-eighth HoI- stein, no doubt a considerable handicap on him as a flesh-maker
 There are forces tending to lessen the beef supply. Among these one nat urally considers first the prevalence of vegetarianism. Whether this theory and practice of diet will increase or di-
 minish is probably for the most part
 matter of individual opinion So far as can judge vegetarianism is not in- creasing. If this is true the fact Is perhaps due to the discovery of fallA- cies in vegetarianism reasoning. It is aI,,rf doing one always devours a certain portion of broken down tissue in con nection with the live tissue. As if the same did not occur in eating vegeta- bles. It Is also held forth that if A certain weight of nut food is in nutri- | tiveness the equivalent of that weight | In beef 1t is as good as the beef for food, which does not follow, inasmuch
 as the nuts may require for digestion
 many times the nerve force which the
 beef would call for.
 It Is my impression that these and
 similar insights will keep vegetarian | ism from becoming at all general. It may be feared that pork, mutton and other forms of flesh Will take the
 place of beef. This Is not likely, first | because they are never much cheaper | for any length of time, and. second because, for the great majority of peo- pie they are less useful and less agree | able as food than beef is
 The production of Ebeef, hence, has | no dubious or cloudy future, like deep- | mining, for instance. It will have it's ! ups and downs, but must in the long
 run be like the path of the just, as de- picted in the Good Book It is a good | occupation to engage in If you are | already in it, be in 1t to stay. |
 New blast furnaces are being erected
 on the Island of Elba, in the Mediter- | ranean. The isle is famous for its | wonderful iron ore.