CHAPTER II 

 LIVESTOCK FARMING 



The statement that "man shall not live by bread alone " is 

 familiar to all. The purpose of livestock on the farm is 

 several-fold: (1) to furnish power hence the horse; (2) to 

 provide protein foods for man meat, milk and eggs; (3) to 

 supply fatty foods butter, lard and tallow; (4) to yield 

 material for clothing wool; and (5) to conserve soil fertility. 



Let it be understood at the start, that livestock farming is 

 not, and cannot be, advocated as the only form of agricul- 

 tural endeavor. Man needs bread with his butter, potatoes 

 and other vegetables with his meat, fruit with his fatty foods, 

 and cotton with his wool fiber for clothing. Yet in livestock 

 the farmer has an avenue of escape from that poverty which 

 surely follows excessive grain farming without a proper return 

 of soil fertility. Moreover, the raising of livestock promises 

 increasingly rich returns. B. F. Harris, banker-farmer of 

 Champaign, 111., says: 



"In 1890 the average net consumption of meat per capita in the 

 United States was 450 pounds, which in 1912 had fallen to 180 pounds. 

 Meat consumption cannot be reduced much lower, nor will the prices be 

 less for population is fast increasing on production,." 



The Place of Live Stock. What is the place of livestock 

 in the economy of the world? If it takes from 5 to 10 pounds 

 of feed to make a pound of gain in live weight on a meat-pro- 

 ducing animal, and less than half of this gain is edible, is 

 not the animal on the farm a cause of a great waste and of 

 possible world- wide bankruptcy? Such questions are fre- 

 quently asked. But which is preferable: to support a large 

 world population by means of grain farming directly for a 

 period of from three to fifty years, or to support a smaller 

 population of higher-class individuals indefinitely for all ages? 



26 



