418 OLEOMARGARINE. 



Secretary WILSON. Did you listen to my reading? 



Mr. SCHELL. Yes. 



Secretary WILSON. You will find it in there. 



Mr. SCHELL. I would like to ask further, if you know from your 

 own experience or from the reports that ha^e come to you of a single 

 case where the consumer has ever been prosecuted because of being 

 defrauded by the dealer ? 



Secretary WILSON. I can find plenty of such cases in this very city. 

 The great difficulty comes in a provision of the internal-revenue law 

 that permits compromising. The more compromising there is done by 

 the Internal Eevenue Bureau the more money they have for use in their 

 Bureau. I have inquired very carefully into the behavior of people of 

 this District, and it has been exceedingly difficult to get revenue peo- 

 ple to take cases through the courts. There is no question about the 

 everyday deception of us people who have to buy butter. 



Senator ALLEN. Were you through answering the question, Mr. 

 Secretary? 



Secretary WILSON. Yes, sir. 



Senator ALLEN. Will you permit me a question? 



Secretary WILSON. Yes; certainly. 



Senator ALLEN. Have you inquired into the effect the passage of 

 this bill will have upon the value of animals raised for food purposes, 

 not for dairy purposes. 



Secretary WILSON. Very carefully. 



Senator ALLEN. What will be the effect of the passage of this bill 

 on that class of animals? 



Secretary WILSON. I tried to reason that in my short paper which 

 I have read. There is a little oil furnished by cotton- seed people, and 

 a little by the people who grow steers; but the old-fashioned steer that 

 had lots of fat in him is not the steer that is used to-day. The young 

 beef, under 2 years of age, put into the market and prepared for the 

 shambles, is not an animal that produces much body or intestinal fat. 

 That is the animal that is wanted to-day. 



The old-fashioned steer that was 3 J years old before he got to market 

 had a large amount of fat, running up in some cases to 150 and as high 

 as 180 pounds. 



Now, then, the tendency in the South, where they have destroyed 

 the lands by perpetual cropping, and the tendency west of the Missouri, 

 in the semidry belt, where they are destroying the grazing lands by 

 injudicious overgrazing, is to take greater interest in the dairy cow 

 than in the steer, and in the case of settlers who want to raise families 

 out west of fhe one hundredth meridian the interest grows every day on 

 behalf of the dairy cow, and with regard to the production of steers east 

 of the Missouri Kiver on the farms there is no comparison whatever. 

 The small amount of cattle that commerce calls for in making oleomar- 

 garine is infinitesimal in value compared with the injury that the growth 

 of this bogus industry will inflict upon legitimate agriculture that 

 requires a dairy cow. 



Senator ALLEN. The meat-growing country of this section of the 

 country is west of the Missouri, is it not? 



Secretary WILSON. Oh, no. I made careful inquiry into the condi- 

 tion of the ranges and their capacity to support animals a year ago last 

 summer, and I found in two States, where I made particular inquiry, 

 Wyoming and Nevada, high-lying, dry States, that they do not support 

 now more than 50 per cent of the animals they supported ten years ago. 

 The ranges are being destroyed by injudicious overgrazing with sheep, 



