OUTLOOK FOR LIVE STOCK 129 



factors affecting the future of live stock in the state. Some of the 

 more important of these conditions are 



(a) The large production of corn and oats. According to the 

 Census of 1920, Iowa and Illinois produced twenty-eight per cent of 

 all the corn produced in the United States in 1919. These two 

 states sold nearly half, forty-eight per cent to be exact, of the total 

 corn sold from the farms of the country. Illinois leads as a corn- 

 surplus state. In oats, Iowa and Illinois produced thirty per cent of 

 the total produced in the United States and sold 45.6 per cent of 

 the total. Iowa leads as the oat-surplus state. 



The fact that Illinois is one of the leading corn-producing and 

 corn-surplus states of the corn belt goes a long way toward deter- 

 mining the direction which live-stock production has and should 

 logically take ; viz., that type of animal production in which a rela- 

 tively abundant and easily available supply of grain is essential. As 

 examples of this type, we have meat and milk production in the form 

 of beef, mutton, pork, poultry, and dairy products. The time will 

 come if indeed it is not already here, when widespread, small-scale 

 live-stock production as a conserver of grain-growing residues on most 

 farms will not be despised. Every grain farmer is vitally concerned 

 in the preservation of the live-stock industry. Under normal condi- 

 tions approximately 80 per cent of the corn, 63 per cent of the barley, 

 39 per cent of the oats, and 12 per cent of the wheat is fed to live 

 stock. 



(b) A considerable area, approximately seventeen per cent of 

 the land acreage in the state, is suitable primarily for pasture. If 

 one will take the trouble to inventory the agricultural resources of 

 the state suitable for live-stock production, he will find that there are 

 in addition to considerable areas of land, very large quantities of 

 feed that cannot be utilized advantageously in any other way. If 

 the area in cultivation were increased to the highest possible state 

 of intensity, there would be a decrease of the amount of land available 

 for pasture but there would be an actual increase of available food 

 for live stock. 



(c) Illinois is favorably located with reference to the leading 

 live-stock markets of the country. It is doubtless true that live-stock 

 producers in Illinois are at a slight disadvantage, when it comes to 

 buying corn for finishing live stock for market, as compared with 

 some other corn-belt states. On the other hand, no other state is so 

 favorably located with reference to nearness to the great live-stock 

 markets of the country. 



