SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 101 



and you would be surprised at their excellence. For fifteen or twenty years 

 they have used the very best sires they could breed and their herds 

 have been improved by the best stock they could get from Great Britain, 

 so those cattle are more highly bred than we find anywhere through 

 our farming sections, and the only place we find anything better is on 

 our best conducted ranches where they have pure-bred herds. A large 

 part of this live stock is bred up to the highest state of perfection. 



Their pastures are composed of two kinds of grasses in the main, of 

 native grass somewhat similar to the native grass here, and the alfalfa 

 pasture. Alfalfa is the great staple crop in that country. It has the 

 largest area and the output is the largest of any single crop that they 

 grow, notwithstanding the adaptation of that land to oats, hay, corn 

 and other crops.- Alfalfa is as high on the market there as it is here. 

 The alfalfa stays right on the ground where it is grown; it goes to the 

 market in the form of mutton, v/ool, beef and pork, so that it is a ques- 

 tion of getting that land into producing alfalfa and keeping live stock 

 upon it until it is ready for market. They have favorable conditions 

 for producing beef in a country where they can do that and where they 

 can graze twelve months in the year. 



During the past season they have had the worst drouth they have 

 experienced for years and their crops have suffered, so much so that 

 during the coming season the wheat and corn crop, these gentlemen told 

 me, will be practically a failure. That is, it will not produce any more 

 than they will need for home consumption. Naturally the pastures suf- 

 fered, but they suffered most where they were too heavily stocked. Where 

 they had more pasture than they needed they got along in fine condition. 

 The cattlemen were complaining of conditions while we were there, 

 but we saw their herds coming through in fine condition, and they are 

 suffering nothing like the loss we sometimes experience during our 

 severe winters. Beef production there is comparatively a simple process, 

 and you wonder why they do not produce more hogs. I think we have 

 more hogs in Iowa than there is in the whole of South America, and for 

 a country so well adapted to corn raising and alfalfa raising you wonder 

 why it is that they have not gotten into swine production. The fact Is 

 they scarcely know themselves. I think the main reason is that the 

 cattle and mutton-producing business has been so profitable they haven't 

 cared for anything else. Another is that until the American packers 

 went in there they did not have a market. 



Mr. Finney, who represents Mr. Armour there, started a company for 

 pork production and felt that he was quite successful, but at the out- 

 break of the European war the shipping space was so much curtailed they 

 couldn't get ships to carry the stock out. Every foot of space that 

 can be obtained on any of those vessels is chartered for shipping meat 

 products, and still the packing houses can only be run at about half 

 capacity. The American packers have improved their plants most within 

 the past five or ten years, and this improvement has given a great 

 stimulus to the live stock and meat producing industry of that country. 

 There was a prejudice against them when they first went there; they 



