380 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



these secondary products in the handling of live stock which keep us in 

 the business at times when we are very much tempted to temporarily dis- 

 continue our ordinary work. 



Just at the present time we have another factor which I think is 

 probably, from a live stock standpoint, the most critical one that we 

 will have to consider in the very near future, and that is the tremen- 

 dous impetus that is being given to the production of wheat, corn and 

 other cereals, in order that we -may win the war. There is no one, of 

 course, but feels that it is necessary for us to take any move that may 

 be called for in order to feed our people and the allies; but in the end 

 the production of live stock in this or any other country will to a very 

 large extent absolutely depend upon the amount of grazing land which 

 we have left upon which to develop our breeding herds thruout the sum- 

 mer season. We have not yet reached the stage in the development of 

 our agriculture where we are producing cattle in any large way during 

 the crop-growing season on anything other than grass, and whenever 

 the production of wheat is stimulated to such an extent, as it has been 

 in our state, that lands which are better adapted to the grazing of live 

 stock than to any other purpose, are broken up, in the hope that we may 

 get one or possibly tv.o crops of Avheat, due to the favorable situation 

 under which we are operating at the present time, it means that we are 

 reducing our possibilities in live stock production to that extent. 



As agricultural colleges and as experiment stations we have given 

 less attention to pastures — to grass, which is the leading crop that we 

 grow thruout the entire United States — than we have to any other crop 

 that is grown on the farm; and grass is the primary and fundamental 

 basis upon which our live stock industry rests and must always rest. 

 Now we are working to some extent in various sections of the country 

 on this problem of increasing the productive capacity of our grazing 

 lands, of our hay and forage crops, and those things, of course, we will 

 have to give more attention to in the near future than we ever have 

 before, because of the fact that we will have less grazing land upon 

 which to produce our live stock than we have had in the past, and we 

 must maintain our present supply and increase it to what ever extent 

 is necessary by making those grass lands and those meadows more effi- 

 cient which we are now using in the production of beef. 



If we can in any way increase the production of our pastures so that 

 the cattle will take a smaller acreage than we are now using, we have 

 increased the efficiency to that extent. On the other hand, if the federal 

 farm loans will enable us to hold and manage grazing lands at a lower 

 rate of interest than we are now paying, it simply means that we can 

 invest more in our grazing lands per head. But, however that may be, 

 we find that the conditions are practically the same in every section of 

 the country where breeding herds are handled under similar conditions. 



Last summer I was fortunate enough to take a trip thru a large pro- 

 portion of the cattle-producing sections of the country, and I found that 

 in our state, where we allow from four to five acres of land to graze a 

 steer thruout the entire year, our grazing lands were valued at from 

 $35 to $40 per acre. I found that in those sections of the state where 



