No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 608 



DR. PEARSON. It has been a great privilege to listen to these 

 addresses of Prof. Hunt and Mr. Wing. I have for years maintained 

 that the farmers of Pennsylvania have been oppressed by an un- 

 justifiable spirit of depression. It is not justifiable. I used to think, 

 like Prof. Hunt, that the West was the great cattle breeding district, 

 and that it would for a long time to come be oiy source of supply, ' 

 but I was imj)ressed during a recent trip to Montana, which is one 

 of the great cattle raising states, as to what the condition really 

 is of the cattle breeding industry. In Minnesota which has three 

 times the acreage of Pennsylvania they can not breed cattle and 

 horses enough for their use. They are buying horses in Chicago 

 and taking them West. We are not introducing our horses, but 

 they are getting them. 



The good laud has all been taken up in the West; there is no 

 more good land; there is no more pasture; and the great cattle 

 industry of the West has passed to the farmers of the East. In 

 talking with some stockmen in Montana, I spoke of the small de- 

 velopment of the livestock industry in that state they said ''Wait 

 until you get to the Big Hole country; jou will see there the finest 

 and the best cattle you ever saw." So I waited until I got to the 

 Big Hole Valley, and what did I find there? About 20,000 good 

 steers, and 40,000 were distributed from the stockyards at Lancaster 

 last year to feed on the pasture of Lancaster county, and we don't 

 boast of it and most people don't know of it. 



In the matter of beef I think there is something we have over- 

 looked. I think Mr. Wing will agree with me that if the Pennsyl- 

 vania and Ohio farmers would raise Shorthorns they would find 

 them a profitable investment. It costs the Western ranchman from 

 $10 to |12 to produce a calf, and if ouc Eastern farmers were to grow 

 Shorthorns they can usually market them in a year. If they are 

 extra good they are retained over another year, but where the herds 

 are retained there is very little attention paid to the calf, and the 

 bull is sold to the morgue. And if our dairymen would grow Short- 

 horns, or Herefords, and keep the beef bulls they would raise a beef 

 quality better than that of the West. These calves are sold at $2.50. 

 In other words, the Eastern farmer can buy for $2.50 what it costs 

 the Western ranchman |8 or |10, or $12 to produce. Of course, 

 there is the calf to raise, but in some districts the skimmilk comes 

 back, and on this the calf can be raised, and I believe that we can 

 compete successfully with the beef interest of the West if we will 

 but keep this in view. 



Then we have another interest in this State which is not always 

 considered, and that is we are constantly purchasing and bringing 

 to our farms the surplus fertility of the West. As Prof. Hopkins 

 explained, most of the crops that are being harvested in the West 

 contain a large proportion of nitrogen and phosphorus, and we are 

 buying them and getting the benefit of it, and when we raise beef 

 w'e do so very often without any regard to the manure as a return. 



Prof. Hunt spoke in a very interesting manner of the future of 

 Pennsylvania as affected by the new meat inspection law. I want 

 to call your attention to a defect in this law making an appropria- 

 tion of $3,000,000 per year for the inspection of meat for export 

 or interstate use, The appropriation gives Penns^lv^ia a propor- 



