The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 9, 1917, Page 10

aste Cattle for Lack of Feed o A K] Losses of 1914 Promise to be Repeated Because of - Dry Season and Short Crop Cattle by trainloads are going to the packing houses for want of feed to carry them over and make the excellent dual purpose breed, are part of the herd owned by ‘calves showed:less loss’ when marketed at weaning time and ‘HEN ‘the milk cows have been sold ‘as “canners” at around $5.50 per 100 pounds to the packing houses, and city peo- = ple begin paying. one, two, maybe three cents per quart more for milk; when the calves have been turn- ed into veal, and when meat prices to the consumers have been advanced another notch, then the country will wake up and find that the alarm over the approaching meat -shortage has been real, and that it has been a farm- ers’ problem, as well as a consumers’ problem. There‘is no hiding the fact that live- stock are being slaughtered because there is not feed enough to keep them next winter. WNews from the stock- yards shows that the cattle arriving there are thin, grass-fed, and that the prices paid for the bulk of them are below what they were several months ago. Fattened stock are growing scarce. Word comes from many parts of the country, from North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and elsewhere that farmers are selling off their stock because they can not feed them. The fields and the pastures of the North- west tell the reason: pastures worn down to the last sheep’s nibble—grain fields so short the straw will hardly stand binding, and wild hay in many places almost too short for a mowing machine, : TIME FOR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE A HAND Farmers are even selling purebred cattle for slaughter where they can not get feed to keep them, for they figure it is better to turn them off while still . in flesh than to keep them when they are thin and be compelled to sell them in a worse condition. Xven the big spurt in silo building, which there is evidence has been general over the . Northwest, has not been sufficient to “insure winter feed. The corn that should go into the silos was ankle high in July when it should have heen knee high, and there have been so few rains, and these so scattered, that the corn is still scrubby. On_top of that there has been the intense hot weather of the latter part of /July which added a kick to the down-hill turn of things. If there was need last spring for the country to~ produce =abundantly of grain, and to conserve its livestock ,supply, ' there is even more reason now why this should be done, why the gov- ernment should take a hand. It has been seriously talked that the govern- ment should buy seed grain to insure abundant planting next year, and lcgep‘ the good seed from going into flour. ‘What to do to keep gpod ‘dairy and breeding stock from going into poor beef, ought to he considered just as seriously, and that soon. If the gov- ernment is to act in time to head off the remorseless maw of the markets which ' take everything and set the prices’ down a peg, it will have to get busy soon. - The feed that was planted last spring in response to appeals for greater production, has not mqteria1121 ed. The livestock for which it was planted are glutting the shambles. Conditions have been the same at other times, and the farmers have had to do in the past just what they are doing again now. LIVESTOCK LOSSES . THAT ARE PROVEN ,In 1914 there was a lack of feed in many parts of the country, and many producers of beef were forced to sell their calves at weaning time, others held on a little longer, but had to sell the following spring, and@ nearly all at actual loss. The market would not pay what the farmers had to have to come out even, and the markets will not pay what they must have to come out even this year if they must buy and ship in large quantities of feed. ? Some significant facts already glean- ed, are worth glancing at again in this connection. In 1914, the department of agriculture, alarmed over the evident decrease in livestock production, start- ~ ed an investigation. This investigation was made by various government bu- reaus co-operating with the heads of the best known agricultural schools in the country, such as those of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and several others. Also range conditions were looked into in the far West and the studies are the most up to date thing on livestock that there is to be had anywhere. They were published last year, under the general title of “The Meat Situation in the United States.” The meat situation was shown to be desperately serious then. It is much worse now. The summary for 11 of the far western so- called “range states” is inferesting in connection with the conditions of the present month. In a general summary of their con- clusions, the investigators of the 11 western range states (Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) said that the decrease in-meat production had probably reached the bottom and would start up again. And there was much stimulus in that direction, but the momentum gained by several years of livestock boosting is now being lost by the unlooked for conditions. Some other conclusions they came to were these: s WHAT INVESTIGATORS SAID ABOUT IT “The future cost of producing meats on the western ranges WILL CER- TAINLY NOT BE LESS AND IN MOST A SECTIONS WILL PROBA- BLY INCREASE, “Better stock, better methods, better care, and POSSIBLE reductions of losses due to STARVATION, predatory animals, poisonous plants, 3tc., will DOUBTLESS TEND TO STIMULATE THE RISE IN NUMBERS AND SOMEWHAT CHECK THE RISE IN PRODUCTION COSTS. “A widespread campaign of educa- tion by the states and federal govern- ment working in co-opecration among C.”W. Cavett of Enderlin, N. D., who has been selling his surplus lower cost of raising, than others, the stockmen and farmers should aid materially in increasing the output of meats and in minimizing the cost of production.” ” In a nutshell, they decided that the cost of range production would in- crease—and it has; that decreased losses due to starvation and other things would help increase the output —and it would if starvation losses could be decreased, which it does not appear they can be; and that an edu-- cational campaign would help, which it doubtless did. G But the production of meat amimals as been transferred from the ranges to the intensified farms, and its burdens put on the shoulders of the farmers in- stead of the cattle kings. Figures gathered by the investigators in the big mid-western agricultural states, showed other startling facts leading to a still further reduction of meat re- sources, all pointing to the rush of live- stock to market, which the present season is witnessing. * ‘They found that in the corn belt states it does not pay to raise calyes— that the venture is an actual loss to the farmers. Classifying the differ- ent purposes for which cattle are kept, as purely beef, dairying, dual purpose, and the like, they found that for the “year 1914 farmers tost from $3.76 to $23 per head on calves sold at wean- ing time. The $3.76 loss was on purely beef-bred calves, the other on dual purpose, while other classifications ranged between these. But some farmers were wise enough to knqw this and they tried keeping their calves until midwinter, when the run to markets is naturally at its low level. But they had no better luck. The losses on these averaged $11.74 for the beef breeds, $21.94 cents for the mixed breeds. The only kind that show- ed a gain were the dual purpose calves, and their gain in value of $1.87 on an average, was so slight as to be worth- less as a stimulus to livestock breed- ing. < But ~some other farmers kept their calves through the winter and did not market them until May 1. On these the heaviest and most consistent losses were- suffered, ranging from $8.31 to $16.52 loss on each animal. Much of these losses were due to thé lack of feed for that season, but they were losses just the same, and they caused the sluffing -off of great numbers of calves that otherwise wopld have been saved and would have gone- into breeding stock or been kept for more mature beef. EVEN BABY BEEVES AR PROVE UNPROFITABLE ~ The following year saw some im- provement in conditions, feed being abundant on account of the universal bumper crop, which people are still talking about, but even at that, prices were such at the ‘markets that theé slight gains in a few instances where calves were sold at weaning time, did not overcome the loss for the two sea- PAGE'NINE profit to which the farmer is entitled. These Red Polls, an stock as breeders. ,Dual purpose according to government figures published last year., e sons, so that for the two years such calves proved a net loss to the farmers of $1.13 to $6.35. The net gain of 23 cents per calf for two seasons, (shown in the dual purpose class only) em- phasized the general disaster of the enterprise. For all those calves kept over until midwinter or the following May, the losses were several dollars per head for each of the two years, giving farm- ers a double dose of calamity, some- thing that they have not forgotten, and which accounts for the rapidly de- creasing livestock supplies. Those are the figures on calves only, and it may be argued they are not typical. Take then the facts shown in regard to baby beeves, the most profitable line of beef production. Without quoting from lengthy tables, but taking the summaries supplied in the government report here are some significant facts, facts that tell plainly enough why farmers are selling dairy cows for beef today,and why the slaughter houses are full of “canners’” and “cutters” when the public wants real meat. Says the summary (Part 3, page 64): “The average price for 1914 was $72.11 per head; the average cost of marketing was $2.15, making the farm value $71.30. The average farm profit for the THE TWO YEARS WAS 78 CENTS PER HEAD, OR 9 CENTS PER HUNDREDWEIGHT. IN 1914 - THERE WAS A LOSS OF $1.42 ON EACH BABY BEEF ANIMAL. The baby beeves sold in 1915 made a profit of $2.18 a head or 26 cents per hundred- weight.” S But the cattle still g0 by ‘trainloads to the packing ‘houses. S OLSNESS TO GIVE “WIND FOWER PLANT” A TRIAL _That “it’s an ill wind which blows no one good,” is being proven again by the ‘Wind Electric Co., which has had one of its plants in operation at Cleveland, N. D, for a number of years. The plant generates its juice~by use of a ten-foot windmill. Storage capacity for six days is provided, and in the ex- perience of the enterprise, covering a, year, no six days have passed without sufficient wind to generate more than enov.zgh power needed. The plant operates a large farm, a village smithy, creamery and other establishments, George Manikowske, of ‘Wyndmere, barely out of his teens, is the inventor. The enterprise was visited last week by Commission of Insurance O, S. Ols- ness, who has concluded to give one of the plants a trial on his big farm near Cheyenne. —FORMAN (N. D.) INDE- PENDENT. ‘The meat trust- has rc’cently Wecome international through the incorporation of the “International Products company” for $6,000,000 which will take over some of the largest South American cattle ranches, and the Central Products company, which will handle the pack- ing end, a $1,500,000 corporation. s