24 



THE LIVE-STOCK INDUSTRY 



No one familiar with the subject of animal husbandry would 

 think of the Philippine Islands as an important live-stock country 

 when compared with such countries as the United States and 

 Argentina. Yet, when compared with other tropical countries 

 or when compared with a semitropical country like Japan, in 

 the number of animals at least, the Philippines make a good 

 showing. For example, there are in the Philippines about seven 

 times as many hogs, four times as many goats, and thirty times 

 as many sheep as there are in Japan, although there is only 

 about half as much land in cultivation in the Philippines as in 

 Japan. In the number of horses, however, the Philippines fall 

 far short of Japan, there being only about one-seventh as many, 

 and only about one-sixth as many cattle. The carabao in the 

 Philippines, however, easily offset the difference in the number 

 of horses in the two countries, and the only direction in which 

 the Japanese farmer has developed his live stock beyond that 

 of the Filipino farmer, as far as numbers go, is in cattle. 



The Filipino farmer, however, has not yet learned the very 

 important lesson that the Japanese farmer has only recently 

 learned — the same lesson which the farmers in the States w^ere 

 a long time in learning — that real progress can come only 

 through better breeding and better care of the animals. 



Under the encouragement of the Government and through 

 the assistance of one or more breeding farms in each prefecture, 

 and the assistance of three federal breeding farms, Japan has 

 made remarkable progress in recent years in the improvement 

 of the grade and quality of her farm animals. For example, 

 the total number of cattle in Japan increased only 9 per cent in 

 the last ten years, but the number of improved cattle resulting 

 from the crossing of the native cows with pure-bred bulls in- 

 creased 150 per cent, and the number of cattle without improved 

 breeding decreased 17 per cent. Ten years ago there were in 

 Japan only 189,000 cattle cariying superior blood, whereas last 

 year the census showed 479,000 such cattle. 



In horses, the showing is even more striking. The number 

 of unimproved, or scrub, horses has decreased one-fifth in the 

 last ten years, while the number of horses with improved blood 

 increased fourfold, or from 87,000 to 451,000. Equally rapid 

 progress has been made in grading up the swine and poultry 

 of Japan. 



A necessary step in progress in the Philippines is to require 

 all breeding sires to be registered with the Government, and all 



