SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART YII 407 



While they have some large enclosures fenced in, similar to those 

 that I have described, the general condition is more nearly that of the 

 open range, and the cattle are more nearly like those of the native 

 stock that we have in Texas and New Mexico, and that they have still 

 today in old Mexico, where they have any cattle at all. They have 

 been crossed with the cebu cattle, which are the native cattle of India, 

 with humps. While they are a large, hardy breed of cattle, and are 

 vigorous and stand the climatic conditions well, they are not what one 

 might term really high-class, beef-producing animals. They seem to 

 have met the conditions there under pioneer improvement as well, 

 perhaps, as any blood that they could introduce, but they have taken 

 the native blood and bred up from that until they have produced a 

 larger, stronger animal, called the caribou, and they are getting some 

 quite good beef from some of those best cattle. Mr. Mackenzie has 

 taken down there a thousand heifers and Short-horns from some of the 

 Texas ranches, and is using them as a breeding herd for building up 

 their live stock in somewhat the same way as it has been accomplished 

 by the long-continued breeding in the Argentine. The work of Mr. 

 Mackenzie in managing this large place is really pioneer work of that 

 kind, and he is doing a great constructive work for that country that 

 will undoubtedly be of lasting benefit. 



They have established packing houses, and their meat is now going 

 through them and into the refrigerator cars and boats, and going across 

 the water, and is being quoted in the London markets, and has a fairly 

 good standing, though of course it does not compare with the beef that 

 comes from the better-bred stock of the Argentine or from our corn 

 belt feed lots in this country. 



The beef-producing industry is a very interesting business. I have 

 attended a good many of your annual meetings, and listened with a 

 great deal of interest to your discussions; and I believe that the condi- 

 tions are favorable for the beef producer's business — perhaps as favor- 

 able as they have been in recent years. Of course, we have our diffi- 

 culties and our troubles, and while we are getting high prices today for 

 the meat products, and while there is some complaint about the prices 

 that the farmer is getting and the high cost of living, yet the items of 

 expense, the feed and everything that enters into that beef production, 

 are such that it does not leave the farmer any more than he is entitled 

 to. I think the criticism that is sometimes directed against the farmer 

 for getting high prices ought to be directed to some other source, and 

 they ought to consider what is added to the price of that product after 

 it leaves the farmer's hands and before it reaches the consumer. 



I received the other day a very interesting letter from a congress- 

 man who had conceived a plan of solving some of the difficulties enter- 

 ing into the liigli cost of living. He sent me a draft of a bill which he 

 had drawn, and which he proposed to introduce into congress, whicli 

 was calculated to remedy this difficulty, and asked me what I thought 

 of it. I am free to say that that congressman did not come from this 

 state,, but, from one not very far removed from Iowa. The two main 



