226 STOCK RAISING IN UNITED STATES. 


United States. In Mr. Clay’s view the foreign demand has 
been the greatest incentive to improvement. “It developed,” he 
says, “years ago in the inquiry for our hog products, an issue 
we were able successfully to meet. In our sheep exports we 
are stillalong way below the European standard. True,we send 
large numbers of sheep to Great Britain, but they fill a third- 
rate place. Thus far blood has not been used effectively in 
this line, but it will come. It is with cattle that we are at 
present reaping the best results of well-sownseed. We go to 
the parent country, buy in Aberdeen their best Shorthorns 
and Angus cattle, from Hereford and other parts of England 
we import the best white-faced blood. Streaming through 
our native pure-bred herds it reaches in diluted form our feed- 
yard steers, and then it returns across the ocean, giving that 
reciprocity of trade which England cultivates so generously. 
The Europeans do not get our best cattle, because New York 
and Boston still claim these, but the exporter buys a grade 
close to the top. He wants nothing else. This influence on 
the market has been far-reaching and all-powerful when we 
come to gauge quality. Our foreign demand is here to stay, and 
it is a most important factor in our commerce. It can be 
heiped mightily by the breeders of both classes—those whe 
raise the bulls and those who raise the steers. It is a 
fertile field, boundless in its size, and it is ready to be 
cultivated. It is a mine from which we can dig more gold 
than from all the real mines put together. It gives labour 
and means of support to hundreds of thousands of our 
farmers, and that means happiness, individual and national. 
One of the well-springs of our prosperity rises in our export 
trade, and among its various branches our live stock pro- 
ducts form no mean proportion ; for,in our annual shipments 
across the Atlantic, we estimate our cattle and sheep in 
hundreds of thousands, and our dressed products in millions 
of pounds. Our live cattle exports alone last year exceeded 
in value £6,250,000, while our meats and dairy products had 
an aggregate value of £37,500,000, a seventh of the total 
value placed upon our exports of domestic merchandise in 
the caiendar year 1899.” 
