CHAPTER. XVIII 

 LIVE STOCK ON DRY FARMS 



When the homesteader locates on the dry farm, his 

 efforts are usually concentrated, and properly so, on 

 the production of grain, but he makes a serious mis- 

 take if he entirely neglects the keeping of live stock, for 

 the presence of the cow and the brood-sow are about 

 as essential to the farm home in dry areas as the pres- 

 ence of the breaking plow. It is true, nevertheless, that 

 live stock on the dry farm should not be introduced with 

 undue haste, for at the outset the furnishing of food for 

 winter may prove a costly problem in seasons that are 

 unusually dry. 



That the production of grain fo^sale should be the 

 principal object of the dry farmer during the first years 

 of his farming is undoubtedly true, but in time more or 

 less of live stock should be grown upon his farm. This 

 should be done to the extent of using practically all the 

 coarse grains that he will grow and also the hay and 

 straw produced as well as the pasture areas that are 

 accessible on the farm or on the unoccupied lands that 

 may be adjacent thereto. 



The lament that the tillage of the arable areas of the 

 open range is going to destroy the live stock industry in 

 dry areas is not well founded. Even on the arable farm 

 devoted largely to the growing of grain, more live stock 

 can be kept in addition than were formerly kept on a 

 similar area. This results from the greatly increased 

 production that follows the proper tillage of the soil 

 in fodder and also in pasture. It would seem safe to 

 say that the food nutrients in the straw grown on an 

 acre of well tilled land in dry areas will be more than the 

 food nutrients from an acre of the same before the land 

 has been broken. The food nutrients produced by an acre 



