Live Stock Breeders' Association. 



261 



have resorted to a large use of new sources of fertility — the com- 

 mercial fertilizers. 



I have in my own State taken the statistics of crop production, 

 which have been kept for a little more than half a century, and I 

 have compiled these statistics for every county in the State for 50 

 years, both as to crop production and as to animal husbandry, and 

 a graphic summary of these I put before you in chart I : 



CHART I. 



In 1850 we were keeping the equivalent of nearly two million 

 cattle in the State, if we count two sheep or hogs equal to one head 

 of cattle in manure production. We were cultivating about three 

 and a half million acres in cereal crops, or less than two acres to 

 each cattle beast. At that time very little grain was sold off the 

 farm except wheat, the corn being practically all fed out at home. 



During the next thirty years our acreage in cereals rose to 

 nearly seven million acres, and our live stock population to the 

 equivalent of about two and three-fourths million cattle, or a little 

 more than two and one-half acres in cereals to each cattle beast. 



For the last twenty-five years our cereal production has con- 

 tinued to increase, but with the development of the great range in- 

 dustry of the West and the low prices consequent, which prevailed 



