Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1916-09-22
LIVESTOCK RAISING
NECESSITY FOR ALL
Every Farmer Must Grow Beef. Pork
and Mutton to Insure Success.

The traveller through Montana, or
in fact through any farming state,
cannot but mark the varying de-
grees of prosperity which he sees.
The contrast between different farms
in the same localities is often so
marked as to arouse comment and
command attention. The older the
country the more this condition is in
tensified. Even in so new a land as
Montana one has little difficulty in
picking out the more prosperous
farms. and almost without exception
these will be found to be the ones
where the main output of the farm is
livestock. The grain farmer may
make more in a single season, an es-
pecially favorable year may greatly
enhance his profits, but taken year
in and year out it is the livestock
farm that is universally prosperous.
There are reasons for this. In the
first place the livestock farm is more
of a business institution, the work is
more evenly distributed throughout
the year. There r no rush seasons,
yet every week has its special tasks.
In the next place the market for most
of the farm products is at home,
which obviates the long haul to mar
ket which so eats into the profit of
the grain farmer. Where grain and
hay are fed they are reduced in vol
ume to about one-eighth of their r
iginal bulk, which is quite an item
when it comes to hauling twenty or
thirty miles. Then, too, the prices OBJ
tanned for these roughages when fed
on the farm is generally higher than
can be obtained at the market. Again
livestock demands constant attention,
which means that the farmer must
live on his ranch all the year around,
and this brings about better homes
and more good, permanent farm
buildings. No countryside is ever
built up by a nomadic population,
that reside in it only during the sum-
mer months. Where the farmers live
on their farms, good roads, eonsoli-
dated schools and community life and
spirit follow as a natural sequence.
Then there is the ever present ques-
ton of soil fertility. Montana soils
are unusually rich in all the mineral
elements which go to make up plant
food, but they will not continue to
be so unless something is done to con-
serve this fertility. The constant
growing of grain crops sooner or lat
er will deplete the land of its fer
tility. We cannot continually take
from the land and put nothing back
in return. When a farmer keeps
livestock he returns by far the great
er part of the plant food to the soil
in the form of manure It is only
through livestock propagation that a
permanently prosperous system of
farming can be built up.
No farmer farms from altruistic
purposes. He is in the game to make
all the money he can, to pay for his
land and earn a competence to start
his children in life and provide for
his own old age. The livestock farm
er asks odds from no one. There is
more money in livestock farming,
taken year in and year out, than any
other type of rural endeavor. 1t is
the safest system of farm life, the
most permanent and altogether the
most satisfactory. 1t takes money,
a far larger investment than is the
case where grain is the main product
of the farm, and oftentimes this
money is hard to find the first few
years, but the nan who works to-
wards that end is the man who will
make the successful farmer, both of
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