216 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



BY-PRODUCTS. 



J. J. Ferguson, Chicago, III. 



In the ordinary work of the farm there is a wide difference today 

 between the methods in vogue and those used even ten years ago. The 

 application of mechanical skill and invention has led to the perfection of 

 many labor-saving devices, which greatly reduce the cost of production 

 of our staple farm products. These changes have come quickly, but nat- 

 urally. Until within recent years the stockman was feeding practically 

 the same foods that were fed by the breeders and feeders of the old coun- 

 try one hundred years ago. In the matter of foods, both human and ani- 

 mal, our people are extremely conservative and wisely so. They must 

 first be shown that the new are superior to the old by actual experiment 

 before they will make a change in this line. We have become quite ac- 

 customed to various health foods offered to a hungry public for human 

 use. Perhaps the health food crank is the first to pave the way for in- 

 novations with human and animal food stuffs. 



Two factors have been at work leading to the introduction and gen- 

 eral use of new foods for our farm animals. The first of these was high 

 priced land. The high priced land of the Middle West means high priced 

 feed The high priced foods of the farm in many cases have not met with 

 a correspondingly high price for the finished meat stuffs into which they 

 were converted in the form of beef, mutton or pork. This first factor 

 creates a demand and the second factor in the near future will prove 

 largely instrumental in supplying this demand. 



In all our manufacturing concerns today the watchword is economy. 

 Such a thing as waste is practically unknown in the modern factory. No- 

 where is this more true than in the case of the modern packing house, 

 which admits at one door the steer, the hog, or the fat wether and sends 

 out from its loading platform every thing in the shape of finished meat 

 products for which a demand has ever been created. In many cases the 

 product has been made first and the demand has followed. For years 

 we have been accustomed to the use of dried brewer's grains from various 

 by-products resulting from the manufacture of different human cereal 

 foods. Germany and France have been leaders in this kind of work, bur 

 it is only within the last five years that any large amount of attention 

 has been directed towards the various by-products of the packing house 

 as being suitable for use as animal foods. It is true that the various 

 brands of ground bone have been used for poultry food for some time, 

 but until recently nothing has been done in the way of converting blood 

 and meat by-products into palatable foods. 



Swift & Company were among the first to see the great future which 

 lay in store for this line of production. At the present time they have a 

 line of no less than eight standard products which are listed as animal 

 food. These include two brands of tankage, two of blood meal, one of 

 meat meal, two of bone and a combination feed made of meat and bone. 



