ANIMAL lyOUSTRIES 221 



numbers. Very few animals are now fed specifically 

 for beef purposes and little attention is given to 

 breeding animals of the beef type. Such feeding of 

 cattle for beef as is practiced is associated with the 

 cash crop systems of farming and, therefore, is best 

 developed in the grain and hay regions of western 

 'Mew York below 1000 feet elevation. Probably the 

 Genesee Valley has much the larger part of the total 

 number. Such animals belong in the region farther 

 west in the United States. Even those few farmers 

 who make a practice of feeding beef animals usually 

 go either to the Buffalo stock-yards or to market 

 centers furtJier west to purchase western range ani- 

 mals in the rough, to be finished on New York pas- 

 ture and roughage. In the last register of pure- 

 bred stock, 1910, only eighty breeders are recorded 

 who owned a total of 892 pure blooded beef animals. 

 Five breeds are reported in this number, nearly 

 seven-eighths being of the Shorthorn type. 



The slow-moving picturesque work oxen so inti- 

 mately associated with pioneer history and whose 

 numbers were formerly an important item in the list 

 of cattle, disappeared from the census returns in 1900. 

 In 1850, there were reported 178,809 work cattle, 

 and in 1890 only 37.293. Their disappearance from 

 the census returns does not mean that work oxen have 

 entirely disappeared from the State. Draft animals 

 of tliis type are not uneoiinnonly seen and may be 

 found in nearly every section of the more remote 

 farming districts. 



