28 LIVESTOCK ON THK FA KM 



The latter is the possibility in livestock farming and the 

 limits in number and quality of population in the world have 

 not yet been reached under livestock farming. 



ADVANTAGES OF LIVESTOCK FARMING 



The principal livestock product meat as an article of 

 human food, contains certain invigorating or stimulating- 

 principles not found in the vegetable kingdom. Thus meat- 

 consuming nations, provided they do not consume an excess, 

 are in advance of those living upon a vegetable diet, and 

 aside from the indirect advantages of livestock farming men- 

 tioned in the foregoing and to be discussed more fully later, 

 there are certain other important and immediately direct 

 advantages. 



Coarse Feeds. If man were able to produce non-animal 

 feeds that would satisfy his needs, if he could eat the kinds 

 of feeds that livestock eats, and if all the land were avail- 

 able for cropping, there would be no need of the meat-making 

 animals on the farm. But such are not the facts. Most of 

 the farm animals use a large proportion of coarse feeds or 

 roughages in their ration, like grass, hay, corn fodder and 

 straw. These are converted into body tissues in the animal 

 and a large part of this becomes food for man. 



Waste Lands. In many parts of the country there is a great 

 deal of rough, hilly and mountainous land. This land pro- 

 duces forage crops, but frequently cannot at all, or cannot con- 

 veniently be farmed by the cropping system. Furnishing 

 grazing for livestock, however, it yields food for man. On 

 most farms, also, there are fence rows and fence corners, and 

 frequently wild land and timber lots, all of which grow more 

 or less grass. This is frequently wasted under the cropping 

 system. With livestock, however, all such land can be 

 grazed, increasing the area upon which human food is pro- 

 duced. On the average farm, too, there is usually a good deal 

 of aftermath which can be used as feed for stock and which 

 would be lost by the other method. 



Weeds. By most classes of stock, and by sheep especially, 

 a great many weeds growing on farms can be converted into 

 human food products. 



