2l8 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



farm into a finished product. . No country has ever maintained for a great 

 length of time a successful and profitable system of agriculture without 

 making live stock farming the basis of that system. No state or country 

 is endowed with greater natural advantages for producing a high quality 

 of domestic animals than is Missouri, and in addition to what nature has 

 done for this State, the men who are engaged in the breeding, fattening 

 and training the animals produced are as well skilled in the science of 

 animal husbandry as any other people in the world as a careful examina- 

 tion of the records of the great competitive live stock expositions which 

 have been held during the last twenty years will unquestionably prove. 



Climate, Feed and Water. — The climate of Missouri is temperate 

 and is not marked by the extremes of heat and cold that are found in the 

 more northern countries. The cold of the winter is not so severe as to 

 make it necessary to provide expensive barns to protect the stock, neither 

 is the heat in the hottest of the summer oppressive. The average annual 

 mean temperature for the State is 54 degrees and the average annual 

 mean temperature .for January is only 30 degrees, while the average 

 mean temperature for July is only 77.5. The average annual rainfall 

 computed from the records of the Weather Bureau is 39.5 inches, only 

 6.49 inches of which falls during the three winter months. The average 

 annual rainfall for the three spring months is 11.97, ^.nd for the summer 

 months is 12.12 inches. The abundant rainfall, admirably distributed as 

 to season, coupled with the mild equable cHmate (only two months in 

 the year i. e. January 30 degrees and February 30 degrees, have an 

 average temperature below the freezing point) gives ^lissouri natural 

 advantages unsurpassed for growing a great variety of grains, grasses 

 and leguminous plants, all of which are necessary in the economical pro- 

 duction of a high quality of live stock. Another essential in growing 

 live stock is an adequate supply of water of good quality. Missouri is 

 checkered by the greatest river system in the world — the Mississippi — 

 Missouri system — and every one of the one hundred and fourteen counties 

 is drained by the tributaries of this system. Fine springs and deep wells 

 of water containing just the right amount of mineral matter to supple- 

 ment the great variety of grains and grasses, are found in all parts of 

 the State, and no farmer need ever be in dread of a water famine to cause 

 loss on his live stock. 



Missouri Live Stock in Competition. — The above paragraphs point 

 out some of the natural advantages possessed by the State for the pro- 

 duction of a high class of stock. To prove that Missouri farmers have 

 taken advantage of their favorable environment, it is only necessary to 

 examine the records of some of the great competitive live stock shows 

 held within the last few vears. 



