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of the products to be affected. The demand for this legislation is wide-spread among 

 the farmers of the whole country. It is confined to no section and is as emphatic as 

 it is universal. Letters, bulletins, and resolutions from the Grange, Patrons of 

 Husbandry, Alliances, and other agricultural organizations demanding legislation 

 have flooded the committee and the House. That the same interest in the subject is 

 apparent on the part of the consumers is manifest by the letters, petitions, and 

 memorials of the various labor organizations, appealing for such action as will give 

 them honest food as against the dishonest compounds that not only rob them of their 

 money, but of their health also. 



The interest manifested in this matter by the producers and consumers of the 

 country has received and is receiving the unequivocal indorsement of the trade asso- 

 ciations of the United States and England, and has the earnest support of all manu- 

 facturers and dealers not directly interested in compounding the products that are 

 the subject of interstate and foreign commerce. That such is the attitude of the 

 business interests of the country, from the least individual to the most powerful 

 trade association, is evidenced by their declarations received by the committee from 

 all sections of the country, and particularly from the great business and food centers 

 of the West and South, namely, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, 

 and other important packing points. 



The universality of this demand for immediate legislation should surprise no one> 

 The interests involved are the greatest known to America. The number of horned 

 cattle in the United States in 1885, is put at 45,510,630 head ; sheep 50.000,000 head, 

 swine 45,000,000 head, representing in the aggregate $2,500,000,000 [i e., including 

 horses and mules not given]. This vast sum represents the present earning and 

 possible future profits of half the population of the United States. 



In the thirteen Southern States, beginning with Virginia and ending with Texas, 

 and including Kentucky, Tennessee, aud Arkansas, all the assessed real estata and 

 personal property, as returned in the census of 1880, did not equal the present esti- 

 mated value of our animal industry ; and all the New England States combined, with 

 the single exception of New Hampshire, did not have enough assessed valuation in 

 1880 to equal the present value of our domestic animals. 



The product of our animal industry in 1884, including meat and labor, and dairy 

 products, and wool, and lard, and tallow, and hides, etc., was four times as much as 

 the gross earnings of all the railroad companies in the United States. 



The animal industry is not only great in itself, but it is great in the assistance 

 which it renders to other productive industries. Take the greatest crop produced in 

 this country the corn crop and 72 per cent, of that is dependent upon our animal 

 industry for a market. Take the great hay crop, and there is no other way to utilize 

 it; and the oat crop, which mostly goes for animal food. The value of these three 

 crops, which are marketed as animal food, of itself reaches a thousand millions of 

 dollars a year. 



While this industry, which asks for the protection proposed in this bill, reaches all 

 the levels of life from the millionaire to the day laborers, it embraces more than all 

 other industries in the country combined the property of the poor. 



One head of this vast aggregate of 45,000,000 of horned cattle is the unit of the 

 wealth of the farmer it is the savings-bank of the day laborer. 



From ail these sources come the demand for this legislation, and to its force is added 

 every argument that springs from health, economy, and business honor. To the in- 

 estimable damage which delay or defeat must do to the health and morals of the 

 country is added the fact which your committee must in candor state is more than a 

 menace, and that unless it be averted by this or like legislation we are face to face 

 with the indisputable fact that one by one the nations of the earth will close the 

 doors of their trade in our faces, thereby subjecting the great industries depend- 

 ent on foreign consumption- and confidence to irreparable inj ury . 



