44 LIVESTOCK ON THE FARM 



To illustrate the difference in the amount of plant food sold 

 from the farm in feeds and in its equivalent of animal product, 

 take the following. A 300-pound pig with ordinary feeding 

 can be produced on about 1200 pounds of food of the equivalent 

 of barley and about 1200 pounds of skim milk. These contain 

 29.76 pounds of nitrogen, 11.88 pounds of phosphoric acid, 

 and 8.04 pounds of potash. The commercial value of these is : 

 nitrogen, 15 cents a pound; phosphorus in the form of finely 

 ground raw rock, 2 cents a pound, and in the form of acid 

 phosphate, 6 cents a pound; and potassium, 6 cents per pound. 

 If it is fair to take the average of the two figures for phosphoric 

 acid, the fertilizer value of the three substances contained in 

 the feeds needed to produce a 300-pound hog, is worth S5.42. 

 The 300-pound pig contains 5.3 pounds of nitrogen; 1.96 

 pounds of phosphoric acid; and 0.414 pound of potash with a 

 fertilizer value of $0.90. The rest of the elements in the feeds 

 consumed by the pig are returned to the soil in manure, making 

 a saving to the farm of $4.52. If a farmer produces 150 hogs 

 a year for twenty years the saving in this item alone is $9040. 



B. F. Harris, chairman of the Agricultural Commission of 

 the American Bankers' Association, in an address before the 

 Illinois Livestock Breeders' Association at Springfield, as 

 printed in the Chicago Daily Farmers^ and Drovers^ Journal 

 of February, 1915, said: 



" The average return of the grain and hay farms of the United States is 

 $7.72 per acre, while the hvestock farms average $11.42 or 48 per cent, 

 more than grain farms, though many livestock farms have poorer or less 

 improved land. 



"Illinois grain farms average $10.60 per acre and her livestock farms 

 $12.55, or IS per cent, advance. In Missouri the average is $7.69, and 

 $9.55, or 24 per cent, advance. Iowa, $8.88 and $13.17 or 48 per cent,; 

 Kansas, $4.79 and $5.26. An exhaustive survey made by the government 

 of some 700 Indiana, Illinois and Iowa farms found that of the 273 of these 

 operated by their owners, 194 were livestock farmers and 70 crop farmers. 



"The livestock farmers averaged 189.5 acres, 37.3 acres being in per- 

 manent pasture; average investment, $33,222; average labor income, 

 $755. The crop farmers averaged 101.1 acres, of which 14.5 acres were 

 permanent pasture; capital invested, $27,532; average labor income, 

 $28. The livestock men had a larger acreage and more capital and were 

 reoeiving a much higher labor income. The average income of the crop 

 farmers was $28, per farm; that of the livestock men, $755, or 27)-^ times 



