COTTON 299 
long as butter and cheese and beef come to the 
South by express and freight, there is a demand, an 
opportunity, for the production of these commod- 
ities in Southern territory. 
Until every cotton farm possesses foundation 
stock for cattle and sheep and swine breeding, 
there are too few animals; until enough are raised 
to supply local markets, and to consume locally 
raised feeds, the live stock supply is short—and the 
cotton farmer fails to realize his opportunity for 
wealth and prosperity. 
WE NEED BETTER GRADES OF STOCK 
It is sadly true that the live stock of the Cotton 
Belt is extremely inferior. The average cow 
produces but 2,000 pounds of milk annually; the 
average steer matures in four or five years, and then 
only with a weight of 800 or 900 pounds. 
Is growing this kind of stock economy ? 
Do you cultivate your corn with a hoe or with a 
cultivator? Do you harvest your wheat with a 
sickle or with a harvester? Do you separate seed 
by hand or use the gin? Do you even travel long 
distances now on horse-back, or do you go on the 
steam car? 
Surely not. You use the most up-to-date tools 
and implements, and follow modern methods in 
everything but your live-stock machines: for the old 
scrub cow and scrub steer are simply out-of-date 
machines. 
More live stock then, and better, that the South 
may feed its own meal, to make its own butter, its 
own cheese, its own milk, its own meat: to get not 
only the profit of growing cotton and other feeding 
stuffs, but a profit in feeding it by means of the 
