IMPOETANCE OF LIVE STOCK 211 



of a permanent agriculture in this land of ours, 

 but a most valuable forage plant. Valuable as a 

 forage plant because it will make an enormous 

 growth and harvest upon our poorest lands, thus 

 making stock farming profitable where before it 

 was a positive failure, because not enough feed 

 could be produced to profitably feed stock. 



To those who are ever proclaiming that to build 

 up our worn and worn-out soils, or to maintain 

 soil fertility, the farmers of our country must be- 

 come live stock farmers and grow and produce 

 more live stock upon the farm, the author would 

 remind, that the manure from the stock rai&ed 

 upon the farms of the United States would not 

 cover one-tenth of our farm lands. What is to 

 become of the other nine-tenths ? If all the farms 

 would go into the live stock business to any great 

 extent, from whence would they get their supplies 

 of stock with which to commence business! And 

 we have shown that manure is not needed to build 

 up our soils or to maintain their fertility. 



Again we should remember as one has well said, 

 "We do not live by meat alone/' Bread is the 

 basis of the food of the world, and it takes the 

 grains to make bread, and the remaining items 

 of diet almost as important as meat are the vege- 

 tables and the fruit, all produced upon the farms. 



Our dispositions and tastes are such that not all 

 of us would succeed as producers of meat, grain, 

 vegetables, and fruit collectively. Some of us de- 

 light in live stock raising, and so make a success 

 of this business. Some of us are more successful 

 in the other single lines of the business of farm- 

 ing, and so writers and speakers in considering 



