ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. Si 



and are not common on the half-sections. It is chiefly upon the farms of 

 sections and larger, that are to be found pastures stocked with beef cattle. 

 The causes for this may be explained. Deducting from the value" of the 

 average summers growth of a steer at the usual prices paid for stock cattle, 

 the risks of death and other losses, herdsman's care, fencing, interest, etc. 

 and there will usually remain an equivalent to a fair rent of the land. Good 

 farming land in Central Illinois, devoted to pasturing beef cattle will usually 

 return about the same amount of rent as the same land would bring if rented 

 to a good tenant farmer. Owners of small farms cannot therefore afford to 

 graze beef cattle. Usually they have not land enough, much less rent out a 

 part of their farm, even though they rent it to cattle. The same is true of 

 renters. I think my hearers will, from their own observation, concur in my 

 statement that not more than one per cent of the tenant population of Cent- 

 tral Illinois are either feeders or grazeis of beef cattle. It is a business that 

 is generally unprofitable for them. They cannot afford to hire land at the 

 current rates of rent, pasture it with beef cattle, and derive a profit sufla- 

 cient only to pay the rent. 



The condition of the large land owners is different. With farms too 

 large or disconnected f©r constant personal supervision they seek a system, 

 of farming that requires the minimum of human labor. Beef production is 

 the business that most fully meets their needs and as such usually proves the 

 most profitable for them. 



Being therefore practically cut off from beef production the smaller farm- 

 ers and renters must look to some other kind of live stock to assimilate their 

 grass crops and if need be give employment to their usually larger propor- 

 tion of labor force. Then it is that dairy cattle have a place; for they more 

 than any other kind of live stock fully meet all the requirements. It is not 

 only mine but the experience of many other dairy farmers that with the 

 same amount of labor pasture land dpvoted to dairying will yield the same 

 amount of income as the same land devoted to any of the grain crops,wheat, 

 corn or oats; also that dairy cattle will through the year give a profitable 

 employment to as much labor and will yield an income, acre for acre, equiv- 

 alent to the income from the labor bestowed upon crops of wheat or corn if 

 raised upon the same land, and in addition to this will so add to the fertili- 

 ty and mechanical condition of the soil that the succeeding grain crops 

 will frequently yield fifty percent and in some instances double what is usu- 

 ally produced by continuous cropping. In dairy cattle therefore we have a 

 kind of live stock that is profitable where land is scarce and hard to get; for 

 with them we may accomplish the double object of recuperating and deriving 

 a reasonable profit from the high priced lands. A systematic rotation of 

 crops is peculiarly adapted to the farms of central Illinois. There is a great 

 uniformity of soil. The soil of one field is just like the soil of every other 

 field; so that a system of crops that is adapted to one field is adapted to the 

 whole farm. There is also no waste land so that there may be a division of 

 the farms into equal fields of the same number as there are courses in the 

 rotation. 



The grasses used in a rotation should be such as are best adapted to 

 making a desirable change with the cereals. Perhaps there is no forage 



