SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-^FART VII 401 



ideal cattle-producing country on the face of the globe than they have 

 in the more favored regions of the Argentine. It is a country that 

 is very rich and productive; the soil is exceedingly good, and runs uni- 

 form; and when thete lands are put into alfalfa, they produce very 

 abundantly a high class of feed. Very little of that alfalfa is made into 

 hay; practically all of it is converted into beef by being grazed on the 

 ground; and vrhere the pastures are well managed, they are practically 

 sure, ever; in the face of a drouth, of a liberal supply of feed the year 

 around. That is done by the most successful cattle men by guarding 

 against over-stockage. 



The alfalfa, when seeded properly and well established, seems to 

 be practically permanent. They refer with a good deal of pleasure and 

 pride to alfalfa fields that have been in for thirty years without a 

 change, and that are stiil producing abundantly. V/e are just learning 

 to grow alfalfa up here; we know comparatively little about it, while 

 they have been growing it for nearly half a century. It produces ideal 

 pasture under their conditions. Probably nothing that we have or that 

 you could find in any country will produce so much feed as those rich 

 alfalfa pasture lands that they have there. 



They state also that they have no difficulty from bloat. Appar- 

 ently, they do net. The calves are born in the alfalfa pastures, and they 

 stay there until they are ready to go to market, winter and summer; 

 and apparently the cattle become so thoroughly accustomed to grazing 

 alfalfa that there are no difficulties such as v/e experience many times 

 in turning cattle onto alfalfa or clover fields. 



The thing that impresses you as you go through that country, and 

 especially the older-settled and richer part of it, is the number of live 

 stock that you will see — particularly cattle, and the general excellence 

 of it. We think v/e have in this state — and we have, according to the 

 records — a large holding of live stock; and that has given this state 

 its great prominence and its strength in the states engaged in agricul- 

 tural production. But in riding through that country, you are impressed 

 by the fact that they have probably three times as much live stock per 

 farm and per acre as you will see in this country, and in some cases 

 it looks as if they had even more than that. You are also impressed 

 with the general exceUence and high quality of the live stock. I think 

 there is more uniformity in the improved breeding, in the general ex- 

 cellence, by far, than we find in the farms of this and other states of 

 the Mississippi valley, where the holdings are smaller; because, natur- 

 ally, where those holdings are in the hands of men who realize the 

 importance of good blood, and who direct the operation of very large 

 areas, they ta,ke every means to improve that stock, just as some of 

 our most capable range men do in our western range country. The 

 general result is that the cattle going to the markets there show a very 

 high general average in th'eir breeding and in their quality. You will 

 find whole train-loads of them running practically as uniform as the 

 animals to be found in the very best feed lots in this country, and they 

 go" there finished to a degree that seems remarkable when you think 

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