No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 261 



use the heavier cuts because they are more economical on the table, 

 but the trade does not call for them. Butchers must have them 

 light. And the same way with lambs. They don't want them 

 over 80 or 85 pounds or they will be too heavy for the market. 1 

 ran across a peculiar thing in the Pittsburg markets Monday, in 

 spring lambs, just to show you how little market things go. AVe have 

 been advocating for years the docking of lambs, but now buyers 

 want spring lambs with tails on. Why do the butchers kick about 

 cutting off lambs' tails? The butchers say slaughterers are run- 

 ning in the yearling lambs for spring lambs and the only way to 

 tell them is to leave the tail on. Of course, if he paj^s ten cents a 

 pound for spring lamb he cannot compete with the man who pays 

 seven cents for a little fall lamb or last spring's lamb. All these 

 things and a whole lot more you will find out if you stay around 

 the market some time. 



I saw something the other day that utterly disgusted me. Some 

 secretary of a dairy cattle association went on to show that dairy 

 cattle were just as good for beef as any other cattle. We all know 

 better. He will know better when he takes a load of them to 

 market. I have seen them sell and I saw one time Brown Swiss 

 cattle, not such a bad shape, but were discriminated against be- 

 cause of their color. A seller in Pittsburg one da}' called me into 

 a pen of these to prove to the buyer that they were not Jerseys. 

 The buyer would not buy them on account of color, which resembled 

 Jerseys, and I had to tell him they were Brown S\viss and Avould 

 not kill like Jersey's. The buyer knows what he is talking about, 

 because he takes the animal and kills and cuts it up and he has got 

 to make his money out of it, and that has not been so easy the last 

 year. 



Many peox>le talk about the enormous profits the butchers are 

 making. If you get into the butcher business you Avill find there 

 is a great deal of waste in cutting up cattle and hogs and sheep, and 

 everybody who buys meat in the State is doing his share towards 

 fhe high cost. Instead of going down to the market and buying 

 a chunk of meat we go to the telephone and order twenty-five cents 

 worth of it and the butcher has to send a man and a horse and 

 wagon up with it, and the delivery costs almost as much as the 

 meat. Another thing: We will spend a lot of money for cigars 

 and for other luxuries that don't do us any good, and when we add 

 a cent to the price of a pound of meat or a quart of milk every man 

 will rear and kick ! And then he'll go and spend twenty-five cents 

 for a cigar or buy half a dozen men drinks! We must educate the 

 consumers too. They need it Avorse than we do. I have had ex- 

 perience on both sides. 



Here is another matter. I talked with a man the other day who 

 told me about the tariff on shoes. He said the market would be 

 flooded with cheap ICnglish shoes because the tariff' had been re- 

 duced. I said: Well, you knocked the tariff off the hides that I 

 produce, why should not I knock the tariff off the shoes, the pro- 

 ducts of these hides? I am entitled to buy my shoes on the same 

 basis that the manufacturer l)uys my hides. >Ve farmers can't af- 

 ford to sell our wool and hides on a free market and buy all oui- 

 clothes and shoes on a protected market, and we are a lot of chumps 

 if we allow it ; but we are going to be asked to do that same thing. 



