AGAINST AN INCREASE 369 



sive grazing." 1 The limiting factor in producing live stock under 

 conditions of intensive agriculture is of course the cost of the teed. 

 This comparatively simple problem is further complicated by the 

 farm management problems of crop rotation systems and the 

 maintenance of soil fertility by the use of manure. Doubtless in 

 many cases where the original range has been put under the plow 

 and alfalfa or other forms of tame hay substituted for the wild 

 hay, there has followed an actual increase in the amount of live- 

 stock feed produced. It is also true that much original range has 

 been plowed with disastrous results. Aside from hay and corn, 

 the principal feeds now used in fattening (or " finishing") cattle 

 for the market, there is a rapidly swelling list of feeding stuffs 

 coming onto the market. The Department of Agriculture, in 

 reporting on the "Meat Situation in the United States," issues 

 one report on the subject, "Utilization and Efficiency of Available 

 American Feed Stuffs." In this report consideration was given 

 to the following feeding stuffs: straw, corn stover, cottonseed 

 meal and cake, linseed meal and cake, soy bean cake, peanut cake, 

 sesame cake, copra (cocoanut by-products), palm-nut meal, winter 

 wheat and winter oats as grazing crops, spineless cactus, sugar 

 .cane, feterita, sudan grass, teosinte, velvet bean, kudzu vine, sweet 

 clover, cassava, beggar weed, rape, roots (mangels, beets, turnips) , 

 silage, canning factory refuse, beet pulp, sugar cane, and molasses. 

 Corn and corn products and alfalfa and alfalfa products are, of 

 course, the important feed stuffs in the region contiguous to the 

 great packing centers. It is obvious that an intensive agriculture 

 can furnish more and better live stock than can extensive agri- 

 culture. But the comparative costs cannot be calculated in 

 advance. The tendency is for cities to increase in population 

 faster than rural districts, and for manufacturing to assume 

 greater and greater importance. And the by-products of many 

 lines of manufacture furnish feed for live stock, such for instance, 

 as the by-products of the various oil-bearing seeds. It is impos- 

 sible to predict the future development of commercial manufac- 

 tured feed stuffs, or even the changes in method of preparing 

 and feeding silage. 



(2) Against an Increase. There are at least three factors 

 which make against any substantial increase in the number of 

 live stock in the United States disease, substitution of vegetable 

 oils for animal fats and oils, and the increase in tenancy. Disease 

 is an important factor repressing meat production. The packers 



1 Editorial, Price Current Grain-Reporter, Chicago. July 31, 1918, p. 7. 

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