General Principles of Live-stock Production 33 
determining the ultimate advantages and disadvantages 
of these various kinds of live-stock. When the chief 
resource of the community is range, the industry must 
of necessity be either horses, beef cattle, or sheep, and 
cannot be dairy cattle or hogs. On the other hand, on 
cultivated ground where land is high priced and feed of 
extra quality, dairy cows and pigs will be more likely to 
return a satisfactory profit. 
From the standpoint of the individual, the man who 
desires a profitable investment for any considerable amount 
of money will usually find a greater profit in range cattle 
or sheep. On the other hand, the man who has very 
limited capital and whose chief resource is his own labor, 
can invest this labor to much better advantage in some 
industry like dairying. 
Some of these industries lend themselves to operation 
on a large scale while others must be limited. Beef cattle 
and sheep may be handled by the thousand, while very 
few dairies have proved profitable where there are more 
than forty or fifty cows. Hogs likewise cannot be kept 
on too large a scale. Hogs will consume many waste 
products and the chief profit in these animals is found to 
come from that source. While practically every farmer 
anywhere in the West can raise a few hogs at a profit, 
there are very few who have been able to make a financial 
success of raising hogs as an exclusive business, since under 
this plan they are obliged to allow a market value for all 
feed consumed, and cannot compete with the man who 
raises his hogs on feeds that would otherwise be wasted. 
Horses also are rarely raised on a large scale, but are more 
commonly produced on the farm where the mares do some 
work to help pay their keep. The farmers can in this 
way produce them at a low enough price to shut out the 
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