366 LIVE-STOCK AND MEAT INDUSTRY 



Meat a Dear Food. Meat is among the most expensive foods 

 of mankind. As population increases, and cheap lands disappear, 

 the live-stock increase fails to keep pace with the population 

 increase. The live-stock industry, or at least the cattle and sheep 

 industry, is characteristic of sparsely settled countries empty 

 countries with plenty of ranges for grazing purposes. In the past, 

 at any rate, cattle and sheep raising has been a matter of extensive 

 rather than of intensive farming. 



Westward Movement of Live-stock Industry. The develop- 

 ment of manufacturing in the East and the consequent growth 

 of large cities there have made it impossible for the farms of that 

 section to supply their population with food. The grazing lands 

 demanded for the raising of cattle and sheep are found in the West. 

 The center of the production of corn and hay has moved to the 

 more fertile lands of the Mississippi Valley. The fat cattle and 

 hogs are fed in this section over a thousand miles from the 

 great cities of the seaboard. To reduce transportation costs, 

 the dressed meats rather than the live animals are shipped 

 east for consumption, and thus it is that the slaughtering 

 business has moved westward with the live-stock industry. The 

 dressed beef, for instance, weighs 55 per cent of the live beef, 

 the remaining forty-five per cent of the animal going into by- 

 products or waste. 



Shifts. Taking the twenty-year period, 1880-1900, as repre- 

 sentative, we find shifts occurring as follows in various branches 

 of the live-stock industry: (1) Practically the only sections of the 

 country showing an increase in the number of cattle on farms were 

 those west of the Mississippi. Here the number rose 75 per cent. 

 The States east of the Mississippi, on the other hand, showed 

 an actual decrease in the number of cattle of over a million and 

 a quarter head. In 1880, 47 per cent of the cattle were west of 

 the Mississippi; in 1900, the number was 62 per cent. The East 

 of necessity furnishes whole milk to its city population, which 

 necessitates a large number of dairy cattle, and a large slaughter 

 of calves and of culls from dairy herds. In the year 1900, 72 per 

 cent of the steers one year of age and over were west of the Missis- 

 sippi, and 85 per cent of the cows two years of age and over not 

 used for dairy purposes. In short, the beef industry had moved 

 west of the Mississippi. (2) Much the greater part of the increase 

 in the number of swine from 1880 to 1900 was in States west of the 

 Mississippi. These western States had 39 per cent of the swine 

 in 1880 and 50 per cent in 1900. (3) There has been a very marked 



