132 The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



stockmen might have their services at a reasonable cost. The 

 stockman himself should receive sufficient training to be able to 

 diagnose many of the more important diseases and give the nec- 

 essary treatment. This is particularly true in the case of swine, 

 w^hich the farmer can successfully inoculate against cholera. 

 We have not realized the nature or extent of these losses as land 

 owners, and certainly the consuming part of our population have 

 not understood the situation or they would have demanded a 

 measure of relief along the lines indicated and which can only be 

 done through the medium of the more liberal endowment of our 

 agricultural colleges and the training of experts to perform the 

 necessary public service welfare work with animals. We also 

 need to educate a generation of stockmen. The stock business is 

 a comparatively new industry. It is much more complicated 

 than that of cotton farming, When one comes to deal with living 

 animals, subject in many respects to the same diseases and 

 troubles which afflict the human race, skill in management, feed- 

 ing and handling becomes absolutely essential. A live stock 

 husbandman is not made over night. The successful feeders and 

 breeders of England and Scotland have followed the industry 

 from generation to generation. The owners of breeding animals 

 in those countries are highly educated and scholarly men, and 

 they have the most reliable and capable herdsmien with wide ex- 

 perience in the handling of animals in charge of their herds and 

 The Agricul- flocks. We must, therefore, encourage our boys to go to agricul- 

 tural colleges and obtain the fundamental and technical training 

 necessary, and then arrange for them to obtain such additional 

 practical information as may be necessary on selected stock 

 farms. When this is done we will have started the industry on 

 the high road to success, because it will have been established on 

 a correct scientific basis, which is the only lasting foundation on 

 which to build any superstructure. 



That we need education along this line more than in other 

 sections of the country is evidenced by the fact that 25 head of 

 cattle out of every 1000 die from disease and 25 from exposure ; 

 31 sheep out of every 1000 die from disease and 31 from exposure ; 

 71 head of swine out of every 1000 die from disease. These fig- 

 ures apply to the Sunny South, with an equable climate, long 

 growing season and the other favorable conditions which per- 

 tain here. On the other hand, in the North Atlantic states, 

 where seasonal and climatic conditions are as unfavorable as 



tural College 

 as a Factor 



