Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1912-05-04
Behind inLiUe Stock
Therefore We import Food Instead of
Supplying 1t to the World
Prices Affected.
(From the N. Y. SUM-


ident of the international Live Stock
Exposition Association, who came on
to address the meeting Of the Jersey
Cattle Club, said yesterday at the VOL
colt that in the live stock work con-
ditions are deplorable. This view was
Endorsed by w. r. Goodwin, managing
editor of the Breeders Gazette, who
accompanied Mr.. Skinner from Chi
cago.
we have got into bad shape in this
country through not having been pre-
pared for the period ,l.ougn which
we passed during the last five years."
said Mr. Skinner. Il mean the farm
ing of the range. In other words, the
range has almost entirely disappeared
and most of the land formerly given
odyer to grazing has been settled by
farmers. The farmer has not yet adj
justed himself to live stock growing.
I'm the Panhandle of Texas they
used % produce 100000 to 100000
calves year, to be taken to the North
ern ranges, This part of the country
has been totally eliminated from the
breeding business and has been taken
p by farmers who are endeavoring
to raise cotton. At the same time the
ranges where this cattle used to be
shipped for double wintering or graz
ing has passed into the hands of far
mers in sufficient numbers to destroy
the value Of the Northern range as a
grazing proposition.
have been marketing for the
last six or seven years COWS and heif-
ers and calves until we have reduced
the possibility of growth in the indus
tryl. In the meantime, While this has
been going on, our population has
been increasing at an enormous rate
Of 100000 year. The two things
together have brought US in a five
year period from our boosted position
as a worlds food supply nation to a
condition where our imports of food
stuffs exceed our exports.
Similar to conditions in the Pan
handle of Texas are those in certain
other parts of the country where live
stock was once the main product.
New Mexico has gone to raising citrus
fruits and Oklahoma into extensive
agriculture; what was once the In
dian Territory and three years ago
nothing but ranges being now all farm
ed.
I'VE are trying to get the small
farmer to begin to raise his own
herds Areas of what was once farm
ing land in our manufacturing dis
tricts from here to the Missouri river
have naturally been taken up by in
dustrial works, and in the neighbor-
hood of towns the farms have been
encroached upon for the production
of garden truck This has increased
the value of farm land adjoining. SO
we are now in the position of Eng
land; we nave got to produce the stall
led bullock and the COW for dairy pur-
poses, which latter must furnish
enough milk and butter to pay her
way,
Even in the East they are taking
up this question seriously. In Penn
sylvania they have just concluded
experiments in feeding beef cattle and
wintering beef cows cheaply on silage,
and. the Carnegie Cattle Com
pany IN Northwestern Pennsyl-
yania, which is devoting many acres
TO raising live stock, has established
Sd herd of beef cows for producing
feed cattle. All such effort for the last
20 years or more had been confined to
the West, but people in this part of
The country are now getting more far
sighted. Just now the producers of
dairy products and meat are up
against il because of short crops.
why, the railway agent at a little
place in Colorado told me he had
shipped $50 carloads of alfalfa to New
York this season. What this costs
here, with freight added, may be gath
cred from the fact that in the stack
out there it is now worth $40 a ton.
In the Middle West they are backward
with sowing their CROPS. Coming
across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio 1 no
ticed that in many places they had
net yet plowed,
THE so-called Beef Trust has been
a choice morsel in the mouth OF tnl
crossroads politician, who likes to
'aise a ely that we are being robbed
by somebody, and many of us have
Ikea TO sit up and applaud when the
packing houses have been hit don
hold a brief for the packers, nor, on
the other hand, do | condemn them.
1t is a fact that the money made by
the packers of late years has come
from what used to be considered the
waste of the slaughter house. This
latter now gives an enormous by
product, The law of supply and de
mand governs the price of meat, just
as anything else. Packers make their
biggest profit when their sales are
biggest, The more their sales can be |
extended the more money they make.
Nobody hates high prices more than
the packers themselves for the rea- !
son that such prices curtail their /
sales.