60 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



temporarily changed and the high price of wool stimulated the 

 sheep industry. 



Horse breeding is an important industry throughout the corn 

 belt and the grazing areas of Missouri and Kentucky. Horses 

 are required for growing corn, but are required to work hard only 

 a few months in the year. By combining horse raising and corn 

 growing, the horse labor cost in corn production is greatly re- 

 duced. Even in the central Illinois corn area, where hogs and 

 cattle have practically disappeared, the rearing of colts is an 

 important industry, based in part upon the great amount of 

 unsalable roughage available on the corn-oats farm. 



The individuals of any class of live stock are so varied that 

 one may have difficulty in deciding which breed or which quality 

 to keep. " The best are most profitable " is a saying which 

 helps little. The problem is to know which will pay best. 

 What is best in dairy cows for one locality may not be the best 

 in another. The cow which is best for a careful, intelligent 

 dairyman may be poorest for a careless, ignorant man who 

 keeps cows. This is true primarily because the superior cows 

 cost more money, and while they are worth more to the superior 

 dairyman, they are worth no more to the man on whose farm 

 all stock soon come to look like scrubs. 



Some cattle are excellent for beef production and of little 

 use as dairy animals. Other breeds of cattle are efficient pro- 

 ducers of milk, but their carcasses have little value as human 

 food. Intermediate between these extremes are found a few 

 breeds such as the Holstein, the Ayrshire, and the Brown 

 Swiss which are excellent dairy animals and produce excellent 

 veal calves, while the defective cows yield large quantities of 

 fairly good beef. The relative merits of these three classes of 

 cattle depend upon the circumstances. On inferior grazing 

 lands, where the herd must lead a migratory life during the 

 summer, and where labor is dear and land cheap, the special- 

 ized beef type usually proves most profitable, but such animals 

 are not suited to a city milk district, where the price of the 

 carcass of a dairy cow is not to be ignored, but where the pri- 

 mary consideration is a large flow of milk of acceptable quality. 



