No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 50a 



Why should you subject the eastern fai-mers and dairy farmers in 

 o-eueral (o this ruiuous blow? Does the Grout bill threaten you? 

 Will you }^ei less for your cattle if there is a tax on coloied oleoniar- 

 •jjariue? Of course not. The right to sell untaxed colored oleomar- 

 garine will help the packer and the oleomargarine manufacturers, 

 but surely not the producer of beef. It seems to me that every prin- 

 ciple of fairness, of honesty and of justice would impel you to protect 

 dairymea from the dishone^st competition that they now sutler from. 

 It affects the cheese maker and milk shipper as much as it does the 

 butter maker, because the price of butter governs the price of milk. 



There is one other feature in this discussion that appears to be 

 worthy of mention. The price of land in the east is now on a lower 

 plane than it is in the Middle States and in the west. Farms that 

 will raise a giveu amount of corn and pasture and a given number of 

 cattle can now be purchased more cheaply in Maryland, Xew Jer- 

 sey, Pennsylvania or New York than in Illinois or Iowa. 



The price of beef is now at a point that is tempting to many dairy- 

 men; some dairymen in the Central States are now, notwithstand- 

 ing the high price of butter, turning their attention to the production 

 of beef. Free butter from unfair and dishonest competition and 

 this change will not be extensive. Dairymen will stick to their 

 trade. Permit the unrestricted sale of colored oleomargarine, the 

 price of butter will fall, the dairymen will become beef producers aod 

 the price of beef will follow the price of butter. 



Last week there was a fat stock show in Philadelphia, and on tlit 

 night of Thanksgiving Day there was a banqtiet of five hundred 

 men interested in the development of the home dressed beef trade 

 as opposed to the trade in western dressed beef. It was shown that 

 there is a large and growing demand for beef killed at home. You 

 may be surprised to learn that the dealers in home dressed beef 

 now have the upper hand in the markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia 

 and New York. This means that there is to be more competition in 

 buying butcher cattle, which will aid you, but it also means that 

 when the eastern dairymen is compelled by dishonest competition 

 to produce beef, he will not be without a local market. 



The eastern farmers must change back to beef production, if they 

 are driven to it by fraudulent competition in their special industry. 

 There are 4,000,000 cattle in New York and Pennsylvania. If but ten 

 per cent, of these are marketed as ripe beeves each year, it will mean 

 the production of as maoy cattle as are now annually exported to 

 England, and the effect of the sale of those 400,000 eastern steers 

 will be felt keenly from Montana to Texas, and will lower the price 

 of cattle in Omaha, Kansas City and Chicago; and what would the 

 effect be if twice as many of them were so marketed each year? 



