4 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I917. 



TABLE II. 



Number and Value of Farm Live Stock in the United States on 

 January i, IQ12. 



Kind of Stock Xumber Value 



Horses 20,509,000 $2,172,694,000 



Mules 4,362,000 544,359,000 



]Milch cattle 20,699,000 815,414,000 



Other cattle (chiefly beef) 37,260,000 790,064,000 



Sheep 52,362,000 181,170,000 



Swine 65,412,000 523.328,000 



Total 200,602,000 $5,027,029,000 



Each one of these two hundred milHon animals was pro- 

 duced by a definite breeding operation. Somewhere some- 

 body, with more or less care and thought as to the result, 

 mated together two animals to produce each one of the indi- 

 viduals or litters which lumped together give this enormous 

 total. The mere statement of such large figures conveys little 

 impression to the mind. Let us try by comparison to see what 

 the figures really mean. If all the live stock on farms in the 

 United States on January i, 1912, had been sold at a price such 

 as to realize the estimated farm value in cash, and then the 

 money so obtained, had been equally divided, each individual 

 man, woman and child in the country would have received as his 

 share from this transaction $54.66. Furthermore the farm 

 value of live stock represented an amount sufficient to pay the 

 whole principal of the public debt of the United States (equai 

 to $2,906,750,548.66 on October i, 1913) nearly twice over. 



This same sum of money would support the common schools 

 of the United States for more than 12 years, assuming the 

 same rate of school expenses as obtained in 1908-09. The mules 

 or the swine each alone, if converted into cash, would pay all 

 the common school expenses for more than a year, the cattle 

 for four years, and the horses more than five years. The sheep 

 of the cQuntry on January i, 1912, were worth more than one 

 and a half times as much as the entire property (lands, build- 

 ings, equipment, etc.) of all the colleges of agriculture and 

 mechanic arts in the United States in 1910, the last year for 

 which figures were available when this was written. 



