62 



THE IRR IGA TION A GE. 



My calcutions as to increase may vary a 

 little either way but experience teaches 

 that out in the southwest to which I have 

 referred, it is reasonable and as nearly 

 right as such an estimate can be made 

 while a variety of causes may combine to 

 vary it somewhat either way. 



Thus far we hare been following the 

 figures of a careful western writer. But 

 to be on the safe side, to make allowance 

 for all contingencies we will discount and 

 lop off 25 per cent and instead of using 

 his figures viz., 441, 310 we count 331,000 

 and their value is $3,310,000. 



At the first blush even these figures af- 

 ter the 25 per cent discount look large 

 and require to be well digested in order to 

 comprehend their significance and realize 

 the truth they convey. But it is nothing 

 more or less than compound mathematical 

 progression and that is just what the money 

 grabbing Englishmen and cannie Scotch- 

 man understand to perfection and explains 

 why those British financiers have bought 

 and stocked with cattle large bodies of 

 land in the United States and other coun- 

 tries in the new world. . 



I am advised that there is a cattle queen 

 in Southern Texas who has accumulated a 

 princely fortune from a small herd of cows 

 turned out on the plains about fifteen years 

 ago and a cattle king in Mexico who placed 

 a herd of a few thousand cattle on a range 

 in that sunny land some years ago and now" 

 counts his wealth by the million but can- 

 not count his cattle for their great number. 

 Let us now look on the subject from an- 

 other standpoint. 



The books tell us that the first cattle 

 imported into this country were of low 

 grade and light in weight. Subsequently 

 the importations were more for the pur- 

 pose of improving the grade than for in- 

 creasing their number. We read that the 

 average weight of the cattle imported into 

 this country in 1624 was less than 300 

 pounds a head and in 1740, more than a 

 century later, the average weight of beef 

 cattle on the London market was 370 



pounds. As late as 1803 the average 

 weight was only 496 pounds. In 1833 it 

 had reached 736 pounds. Since that time 

 it has steadily increased until now, in the 

 English and American markets the weight 

 is enormous, reaching 6,000 pounds and 

 more, while 1,000 pound cattle are as 

 common as prairie marigolds in summer. 



This increase in weight has been brought 

 about by judicious grading, careful selec- 

 tion and feeding. This grading, selection 

 and feeding is in answer to demand for 

 more butter, cheese, and more and better 

 quality of beef. It is estimated that there 

 are now more than $500,000,000 invested 

 in cows alone in the United States. The 

 official report of the Department of Agri- 

 culture at Washington gives 16,504,629 

 as the greatest number of milch cows on 

 the farms in the United States at any 

 one time since 1880 and fixes their value 

 at $423,486,649. As this does not include 

 the cows owned and kept in the cities, nor 

 thousands more on the mountain ranges, 

 the prairies and plains of the far west 

 that are never reported to the Department, 

 $500,000,000 is really less than the cash 

 value of the milch cows in the United 

 States today. The number of other cattle 

 is given in the Department report at 37,- 

 651,239 and valued at $694,382,913. 

 These figures are probably a fourth below 

 the actual number and real value. But 

 added together as given in the official re- 

 port of the Agricultural Department at 

 Washington the cows and other cattle 

 number 54,155,868, and their cash value 

 $1,117,869,562. To the casual observer 

 these figures are staggering, but they are 

 correct nevertheless, because they are offi- 

 cial as given by the Department at Wash- 

 ington and the United States government 

 is responsible for their accuracy, or at least 

 that they are within the lines, and it may 

 be accepted as mathematically true that 

 the figures are 25 per cent below the real 

 number and cash value. On that basis 

 the correct number is 71,233,802 worth 

 $1,397,336,952. Our cattle exports in- 



