18 INTRODUCTION. 



included in that of slaughtered cattle, as above stated. The 

 prices of butter and cheese are placed low, as their wholesale 

 home prices have ruled within the year 1866 at an average of 

 full 30 cents for butter, and 17 cents for cheese. 



Thus, the annual product of our neat stock may be estimated, 

 within bounds, at : 



Beef, say, . . . . . $300,000,000 

 Butter and Cheese, say, . . . 131,000,000 

 Milk sold, say, .... 13,000,000 

 Milk produced and consumed in house- 

 holds, say, 10,000,000 



$454,000.000 



To this sum add the value of the labor of 2,240,000 working 

 oxen at 25 cents each per day for 250 days in the year, besides 

 the cost of keeping, making $140,000,000, and we have a sum 

 total of $594,000,000 per annum; and adding the veals 

 slaughtered in all parts of the country, we safely put down an 

 aggregate of six HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year pro- 

 duced from the neat cattle of the United States and their 

 Territories. 



An interest so enormous in its investment and production a 

 large per centage of which, we admit, is chargeable to the food 

 it consumes and the labor expended upon it merits the best 

 consideration of every one concerned, and a close study of how 

 much profit is to be derived from it. The amount of profit is 

 comparative, depending on the quality of the animals, the care 

 expended upon them, and their consumption of food. That this 

 profit is far less than it should be in a country like this, is 

 manifest in the wretched classes of cattle that are kept 

 throughout a large portion of our territory, the lax manner in 

 which they are cared, or rather uncared, for, and the stinted 

 quantities of food they are allowed. Thus, there is evident 



