48 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



degree of soil fertility, on the one hand, and the keep- 

 ing of farm animals and the return to the soil of the 

 manure produced by them, on the other, has always 

 been apparent, and nowhere is it more forcibly il- 

 lustrated than in an examination of agriculture in 

 the South. The Iowa farmer returns to his soil 

 the fertility produced by his live stock. The South- 

 ern farmer ships all this plant food away. That is 

 the whole story. 



In every section where it has become necessary, 

 for any reason, to change the established system of 

 agriculture, there have always been apologists for 

 the old order of things, who have advanced 

 local conditions as excuses for continuing the 

 pernicious system of farm practice. The South 

 has been unfortunately afflicted with its apologists 

 of this nature. It has been argued that the South 

 is not primarily adapted to live stock producing, 

 that it hasn't the feeding nor the marketing facil- 

 ities and that its climate is not suitable. All these 

 excuses have in turn been proved fallacious. The 

 most discouraging hindrance to southern cattle 

 growing, until very recent years, has been the in- 

 roads which Texas fever has made on native south- 

 ern cattle. This disease, however, is now thor- 

 oughly under control, and its absolute eradication 

 is but a matter of a few years at the mos^ 

 Any southern farmer can, with a minimum of ex- 

 pense and labor, rid his herd of Texas fever and 

 keep it free indefinitely. This disease is no longer 

 necessarily a hindrance to cattle growing. The entire 

 South has a climate in which it is rarely neces- 

 sary to protect cattle in winter. There is abundance 

 of forage and plenty of water. The southern cattle 

 grower has none of the severe drawbacks with 

 which the northwestern ranchman has to contend. 



