30 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



the great wheat section of the United States for 

 thousands of harvest hands. This extra supply of 

 help, which is needed for only a short period of the 

 year, is not available in the grain regions, and must 

 always be imported from far-away cities and com- 

 munities having a surplus of labor. There is an 

 annual exodus of tens of thousands of men from 

 the centers of population into the grain sections at 

 harvest time and back again upon the approach of 

 cold weather, when the demand for their services 

 suddenly ceases. This tends to create an itinerant 

 class of farm laborers, and is undoubtedly a prolific 

 source of the class of American society known as 

 the hobo. Live stock farming, on the contrary, 

 furnishes the opportunity for the continuous re- 

 munerative employment for large numbers of in- 

 telligent laborers throughout the entire year. It 

 tends to equalize the labor supply in such a way 

 that the farmer will usually have a sufScient num- 

 ber of men at his command during the extremely 

 busy seasons of the year, because he has work 

 enough to give employment during the slack sea- 

 son also. The keeping of live stock in connection 

 with general farming thus make both for the welfare 

 of the farm'er and the laborer. 



The establishment of particular systems of live 

 stock farming which do not suit the times or con- 

 ditions is not to be advocated. Some forms of 

 stock production should be and undoubtedly will 

 be abandoned. Others should be largely extended 

 and developed. By the intelligent rotation of 

 crops, in connection with live stock farming which 

 returns to the soil the largest possible amount of 

 fertility and organic material, the producing 

 capacity of the American farm must be made to 

 continually increase. These larger crops, in return, 



