FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 689 



During the past twenty years we have witnessed the destruction of 

 the cattle business within the grain belt, while the price of meats has 

 worked higher and higher year by year, and under the present tariff 

 act we have seen our meats replaced with the cheaper meats of South 

 America and Old Mexico, and these same cheaper meats in the hands 

 of these packers that destroyed the cattle business within the grain belt. 

 They have given us free grains, I think for the sole purpose of afflicting 

 the grain farmer with us so that he can suffer with us, as we are told 

 miseiT loves company. 



Breeders of purebred cattle, we are interested in this meat situatioji, 

 for if there is little or no prosperity in the production of cattle for 

 meat purposes, there will be little permanent prosperity in our business, 

 and while I think the breeding of purebred cattle, especially the Aber- 

 deen-Angus, looks the most encouraging it has since I started in the 

 business, if the producers of meat on the farms suffer we are going to 

 suffer with them, and free trade in and lower prices for grains will 

 not add to our prosperity as the framers of our present tariff act seemed 

 to reason, but before it can affect our business in breeding cattle it must 

 lower the price of meats on the block to the general consumer, and 

 packers are loathe to do this, and if they do not, I cannot see how it will 

 hurt our business any more than it was before the present tariff act 

 was passed. Anyway, it will not affect it any more than it has already, 

 for the business has adjusted itself to the conditions of the new tariff 

 act already. 



I am going to take this view of it and go forward with renewed 

 purpose to breed and keep some of these black beauties on my farm and 

 the herd up to a high standard, so that I can turn my farm over to 

 my posterity full restored to its virgin fertility and conserved for future 

 generations. 



One of the most hopeful signs of the times for the cattle business is 

 the lust for land on the part of the American people which has led them 

 to invade the big cattle ranches in the West and Southwest during the 

 past ten years, where we have seen these ranches cut into farms and the 

 big cattle outfits forced out of business, and if the American people are 

 to conserve their vital energies and continue to be a force in the civilized 

 world, they must eat meat. This meat must be produced somewhere, 

 and there is no better place to do it than within the corn belt where the 

 feeds are made that make and produce the primest beef known to the 

 trade. You all know that we have the ideal breed of cattle for the. 

 corn belt farmer to produce, where the minimum amount of feed will 

 ripen our cattle into baby beef at from ten to eighteen months old that 

 is so much sought after by the packer and retailer, as the Angus carcass 

 gives the largest per cent of edible meat with the least possible waste. 



The cotton and sugar producer and farmer in the south who has been 

 forced to dispose of his crop to each of the great trusts that control their 

 product, each of which has been heavily protected for years by our tariff 

 laws, find their business at low ebb for the continued production of each 

 has impoverished their lands, and many, many acres throughout the 

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