204 THE BUSINESS OF FABMING 



disposition to give almost his whole time to their 

 attention and care, for they cannot be kept in 

 health and brought to a good marketable stage 

 without it. He must also be possessed of that 

 kindly disposition which enables one to treat stock 

 with kindness and gentleness, for animals resent 

 harsh treatment as much as man. When we con- 

 sider the fact that upon the farms of the United 

 States there are twenty-five millions of horses and 

 mules, the cost of feeding which, annually, is about 

 two billions of dollars, and that it takes one-third 

 of the hay and corn grown on the average farm 

 to feed the horses or mules required to cultivate 

 and care for the farm, it can be seen at a glance 

 that to keep much of the stock upon the farm in 

 addition to horses and mules necessary to run it, 

 means that the farm must grow more grain and 

 forage than is now produced upon the average 

 farm. 



Few farms have a large acreage of blue grass 

 pasture, and even if they had, it could not be de- 

 pended upon in the dry seasons. 



It is probably designed by Nature that we should 

 not all be stock farmers, for if we were, from 

 whence would come the grain to feed the world, 

 and the hay and other feed stuffs which feed the 

 animals of those who do not farm? 



Somebody must be grain farmers, that is, 

 farmers who grow and sell all the products of 

 the farm, only reserving enough to feed the stock 

 required to carry on their farm operations and to 

 furnish food for themselves. As nearly three- 

 fourths of the farmers of the United States are 

 grain farmers, and probably always will be, for 



