62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The man who works for a grain farmer has work only during the sum- 

 mer season, and after that he drifts around, perhaps going to the smaller 

 towns, and in a few years becomes a spendthrift with no settled occu- 

 pation. But the man who goes on a farm for twelve months saves his 

 money, and in a short time you will find him on a little farm of his 

 own. Or he may become a tenant for a few years, and then have his 

 own farm. You can make your profits greatex*, can distribute them more 

 evenly, can help other men along, and all the time you are making 

 your farm richer by this kind of farming. You will say that it is hard 

 for some of the smaller farmers, some of the younger ones, or some of 

 the tenant farmers to become stock raisers. True; but we can help 

 them. Men who know the business can suggest ways of starting the 

 business and ways of getting hold of a small herd of cattle. It is true 

 that a great many people do not know how to feed this stock, but they 

 can learn, and they will learn if they have the stock. 



The trouble with our American farmer is that he wants to count 

 theHlollars that he gets in rather than the dollars he puts in. How many 

 here know the exact profit their farms bring them? A man can easily 

 tell you how much money he gets out of his farm, but he can not tell 

 you how much he puts in. We can study the markets. A man said 

 to me the other day that he could not feed cattle at the price they are 

 bringing. I asked him if he was sure he could not. Are you sure that 

 you can not do this? The trouble is that we usually produce something 

 in this line that sells a cent or two cents under the top market price. 

 How many men feed well enough to get this price? We need to produce 

 a better article of live stock. Follow your cattle to Chicago and see 

 how many of them reach the top of the market. We should try to 

 produce the very best and we will always find a market for it. There 

 is little trouble in selling a first-class product, but the poor product is 

 always a drug on the market. We need to study the question of how 

 to produce a better quality of beef, and how to produce it economically. 

 We must not lose sight of the fact of fertility in discussing this. I 

 do not believe that any man has a moral right to rob the soil, and that 

 is what we are doing in many cases. We should encourage in every 

 way possible the bringing of more live stock into our State, and to 

 encourage the breeding of better stock. Go to the stockyards and study 

 the stock there. Go into our horse markets, if you please, and see how 

 many of the horses that go into the market are sold for anything like 

 first-class prices. Farmers do not know, as a rule, what the markets 

 demand. We need to study the markets and encourage in every way 

 the bringing of live stock to the farms. 



We Icnow if we grow a clover crop on the farm something must 

 take care of that. Travel over the State and see the tons and tons of 

 corn stacked up that ought to be going through cattle and sheep and 

 producing a profit. These things are going to be different when we come 



