370 LIVE-STOCK AND MEAT INDUSTRY 



have aided other interests in a campaign against tuberculosis, 

 which is rampant in dairy sections. West of the Missouri River 

 contagious abortion is a more serious menace to cattle production. 

 In the South the so-called Texas tick is a serious handicap. Hog 

 cholera, the deadliest foe of swine, is only partially under control 

 by vaccination^ j Sheep on higher altitudes are comparatively 

 healthy, while at lower altitudes internal parasites and other 

 ailments play havoc with flocks. Lack of care in winter is also 

 a cause of many severe losses. 



On the demand side of the market we are confronted with the 

 fact that the people are eating less meat and more meat substitutes. 

 Vegetable fats and oils are very rapidly establishing themselves 

 in the dietary of the people. The nations which do consume less 

 meat and more meat substitutes fail to show any loss in physical 

 stamina thereby. The average annual meat consumption, per 

 capita, of the meat eating countries of the world is 93.3 pounds of 

 beef, mutton and pork. In the United States the meat consump- 

 tion decreased from 181.5 pounds in 1900 to 170.6 pounds in 1909. 

 Only two countries exceed this Australia, 263 pounds (in 1902) 

 and New Zealand 212 pounds (in 1902). In 1906 the consumption 

 of meat in the United Kingdom amounted to 125 pounds per 

 capita; in France, in 1904, to 77 pounds; in Germany in 1913, to 

 100 pounds. 2 The most serious factor of all making against an 

 increase in live stock is the long-continued and steady increase in 

 tenancy in the United States. Renters do not raise live stock, 

 especially the short-term renters, which is the class known in this 

 country. The tenant is not interested in live stock from the stand- 

 point of maintaining the fertility of the soil, for it is not his soil. 

 He is concerned chiefly with a "cash crop." He is not therefore 

 concerned with a rotation system in which live stock forms a part. 



Summing up the arguments for and against the probable 

 increase in the number of live stock in the United States, it seems 

 that the arguments against an increase outweigh the arguments 

 for an increase. 



Foreign Competition. Foreign competition is taking the form 

 both of producing live stock and of packing meat for the market. 

 So far as South America is concerned, this competition is largely 

 by transplanted American men and American capital. Thus in 

 1912 Murdo McKenzie of Texas and Denver, America's most 

 prominent cattleman, went to Brazil to develop the cattle resources 



2 Meat Situation in the United States. Report 109, United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, pp. 16, 17. Washington, 1916. 



