The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1910-09-09
$5O,OOO,O0O A YEAR
LOST RY cattle TICKS

An interesting visitor to the Pro
gressive Farmer Office last week wal
James E. Downing, of the Bureau o.
Animal Industry, United States De
partment of Agriculture, who has JUS
completed a 5000-mile trip through
the Southern States. Mr.. Downing
is native of Iowa, and has been as
tonished at the marvellous opportuni
| ties for all sorts Of agriculture in the
| South.
| IF you are not going to have q
BOOM he declared, Il do not see the
reason why. People are going all out
to the far West, to Wyoming, Mon
tana and Idaho, and paying tre-
mendous prices for semi-arid land, or
going to Oregon and paying as much
as $1,000 per acre for fruit lands,
when the biggest opportunities, both
for farming and the purchase of farm
lands, are right here in the South, and
have not yet had the attention of the
Western immigrant.
I'VE think we have a great stock
country up in Iowa" continued Mr..
Downing, "but it doesn't take an
Iowa man any time to see that you
have double the advantages here in
the South for stock raising. In Iowa
we are already having to feed corn,
and when a Western man sees how
he can have a green pasture crop all
the year round here in the South, it
makes him want to get right out and
start to stock raising. You have a
big advantage, not only in your
longer seasons, but also in your free
dom from tuberculosis, which is the
bane of stock raising from New Jer-
sey to the Rocky Mountains. Oh. you
have great chance for live stock.
And there is money in it-big
money in it. Down in Spartanburg
last week I ate butter from Fox
River, Wis, selling at forty cents a
pound, while the native butter was
selling at thirty cents; Western steak
at twenty-five cents a pound. native
steak being fifteen cents. and, of
course, the higher prices for both
the steak and butter will be quickly
realized for the homemade product
Just as soon as good stock and good
methods are introduced. And that
there is big trade for these high
priced Western products is shown
by the fact that Armour, Swift and
the International Packing Company,
all three, have prosperous branches in
Spartanburg, run by paid resident
managers
Then the South is finding that it
can make good corn crops. too. and
corn is selling at $1.1O a bushel.
while in Iowa the price to-day is
siXty-five cents a bushel.
DO you know what ! consider the
biggest drawback to Southern devel-
opment right now?" Mr.. Downing
asked us, and then went on to answer
his own question:
1T is nothing more nor less than
the cattle tick. Those men who are
going West and paying from 500 to
$1,000 per acre for land would come
South and become big farmers here
II the cattle tick were out of the wav.
and the advantages of this country
were brought to their attention. They
all want to raise some stock-they
don't believe in any system of farm
ing that does not include stock rails
ing and the maintenance of soil fer
tility-and it is the cattle tick that
stands in the way OF their raising
stock, and, therefore, in the way of
their coming"
Mr.. Downing said he would esti-
mate that the cattle tick costs the
South $50, 100000 a year at the very
least. Not only does it levy ire
mendous toll in preventing free en-
trance to big Northern markets. but
it is great waste in other ways.
For a genuine ticky ANIMAL he
continued, Il should say that it costs
fifteen per cent more in feed than for
COW or steer free from ticks, and the
loss of milk on ticky COW would
average a quart day. Take the
Louisville, KY, market, for example,
and you not only get one cent pound
less for ticky cattle SO On an 500
pound animal-but there is consider
able loss even on ticky hides Again,
compare an Idaho or Wyoming calf
with a Southern calf-a Tenssesee
calf, for example. Tho Western calf
will bring S12 or $1A, whereas one
of the scrubby calves in tick-infested
territory, at the same age and with
the same attention, will bring only
Sc. And yet the South has the adj
vantage of two or three months
longer grazing period. Another in
teresting thing find is that land
values increase very rapidly whenever