The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1940-03-21

ter at the University Farm came
to a close on March 81 enabling
Mr.. Smith to start work in Stearns
county next Monday.
All leaders and members over
the county will welcome his re-
turn and will be making arrange
ments to use his services wherever
possible. Mr.. Smith completed a
successful year in the county in
1889 with the result that the num-
Der of clubs and the number of
club members enrolled was higher
than in any previous year. One
of the last pieces of club work he
carried out was to accompany the
dairy judging team made up of
Conrad Zehrer, of the Gopher
Prairie club, Bernard Sonstegard,
of the Belgrade club, and Earl
Boldt, of the Paynesville-Koron
club, to the National Dairy Show
at the Worlds Fair in San Fran
cisco last fall. These three boys
represented Stearns county in the
dairy judging contest at the Min
nesota State Fair, winning first
place and the right to represent
Minnesota at the national contest
at the Worlds Fair. At the San
Francisco show in competition with
teams from all other states these
boys placed fifth. This is a very
creditable showing for Minnesota
and Stearns county in view Of the
fact that teams were entered from
so many states.
Frequently it is necessary, &C
cording to the county agents Of
flee at st. Cloud, to clear up some
misunderstanding that may exist
in the minds of farmers and other
people on the matter Of imports
and exports. Recently comments
have been made relative to the i'm
port of wool and hides. No one
denies that large quantities of wool
and hides are imported and it must
probably remain that way. Hides
for example range in price on
farms from &c to &c a pound and
a good cow or steer hide weighing
in the neighborhood of 60 pounds
does not represent a very large por-
ton of the value of the beef or
dairy animal from which it came
That being the case cattle cannot
be raised merely for the purpose
Of producing hides. They are rails
ed for the meat or dairy products
that they produce. Hides then rep
resent only very small portion
Of the farmers income, from the
dairy or beef industry. AS things
stand in America the quantity
of both beef and dairy products
produced is ample to take care of
the American needs. To produce
enough cattle to take care of all
the American needs for hides would
require many times more cattle
than are now produced. In so do
ing the beef and dairy market
would be glutted and the price of
these products to the farmer would
be terribly low. In foreign coun-
tries like Russia it is possible to
produce enough hides to take care
of the needs of the people. There
observers tell one that an entire
family often has but one pair of
shoes. Here in America every
member of the family wants at
least one pair of shoes and some
members may want 8 or 10 pairs.
Since the American standard of
living needs so many shoes it fol-
lows that America will have to
continue to import hides and it
would be better to import some
hides rather than to raise enough
cattle to produce all the hides nee
essary and thereby spoil the dairy
and beef market.
The same situation exists with
wool. When a farm flock of sheep
produces 500 of income for farm
err, about SGT Of this income is
from the sale of meat and $33 from
the sale of wool. These figures
hold good on the average over a
period of years. To produce enough
wool in this country to take care
of the American needs the sheep
numbers in this country would
have to be doubled. AS was the
case with dairy and beef products,
enough mutton and lamb is now
produced to take care Of the Amer
lean needs. Twice the number of
sheep would spoil the market for
lamb and mutton. Therefore 1t
follows that America must continue
to import wool or spoil entirely a
rather satisfactory market for
these meat products. Again the
American way of living might be
changed whereby less wool would
be used by human beings but this
again is not easy to accomplish,