HISTORY OF THE BEEF CATTLE INDUSTRY IN ILLINOIS TEXT

by the disease and died in April. Another cow sold to E. S. Hodson, of Springfield, soon after her arrival was treated for a similar disease. Another cow sold to Frank Gaston, of Normal, Illinois, became sick April 6, but recovered. As very many of the cattle sold at the Epler sale soon afterward became affected with pleuro-pneumonia, and as the mingling of the animals at the sale was the only means by which many of these herds could be connected, it became very certain that the disease in Illinois had been brought to the state with some animals that had been sent to Mr. Epler. The animals which he had collected for this sale had come from a number of different herds located at widely separated points. Upon investigation, it was found that only one of these herds had been affected with pleuro-pneumonia. That herd belonged to Mr. C. R. C. Dye, of Troy, Ohio. Mr. Epler had purchased five cows from Mr. Dye on December 28, 1883. These cows arrived at Mr. Epler's farm at Virginia, Illinois January 4, 1884. Two of the five cows purchased from Mr. Dye had been previously bought from the herd of James Lyman, of Downer's Grove, Illinois, in May, 1883. Mr. Dye had bought cattle from several farms in the east, but it was decided that the disease had been brought to his herd by some grade Jerseys which he bought in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland. One of these cows had, apparently, recovered from the disease, but was still able to communicate the disease which was afterwards determined. The steps taken to eradicate the dreadful disease were as follows: (1) Investigation to determine the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in any suspected locality in the country. (2) The immediate quarantine and isolation of any herd in which the disease was found. If any considerable amount of the disease was found in any section of the country so as to be dangerous of spreading to other districts, the immediate quarantine of that district was enforced, as well as the prohibition of the movement of any animals from one herd or premises to any other within the district, or of any cattle to be upon any highway or any enclosed land within such district; provided, however, that animals might be moved, upon a written permit, signed by an inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry. As soon as the quarantine order had been made, the immediate inspection, tagging, and numbering of every bovine animal in the district, and the keeping of a record of the same, and a record of all animals moved by permits was attended to so that the Bureau of Animal Industry might have complete control of the movements of all cattle within the quarantined districts. (3) The condemnation and slaughter of all animals found to be diseased or exposed to the disease within the quarantined districts, and the thorough disinfection of all premises where such animals had been, or on which contagious was suspected to exist. At the same time, inspection and post-mortem examinations were made of every animal slaughtered during the quarantine, whether purchased and slaughtered by order of the Bureau of Animal Industry or killed by butchers, or others for their own use. FOOTNOTES: [38] Report of Bureau of Animal Industry, 1886. VII. THE FEED INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES "Sixty years ago (1853) there was no knowledge of scientific feeding in the United States. Sixty years ago there was no feed industry in the United States. Thirty years ago (1883) the teaching of scientific feeding in the United States began. Thirty years ago the feed industry in the United States began. When I say that sixty years ago there was no feed industry in the United States, I mean that there was no feed industry such as we of the present day apply to the term. At that time, the population of the United States was only one-fourth what it is today. The problem of feeding domestic animals, as well as human beings, was simplicity itself, in fact it was not a problem. We had more land than we knew what to do with. The owner of livestock raised more grain and more hay and had more pasturage than he had animals to consume or than he had a market for. Domestic animals were fed on the natural grains and hays, grown upon the same farms as themselves. The city or town owner of horses or livestock bought his feed stuffs mostly direct from the farmer who grew them. By-product materials of the greatest feeding value, while produced in far smaller quantities than at the present day, were not sufficiently appreciated nor sufficiently needed to cause the farmer to make the effort to haul them from the mill or factory to his farm, much less to buy them. Scientific feeding with a knowledge of the balanced ration had not as yet been taught in our state universities. The value of grinding the natural grains was only slightly understood and was practiced only in a very limited way by a few of the more progressive and thoughtful feeders. Flour mills experienced the greatest difficulty in finding a market for their bran and middlings. While these by-products were probably the first to be recognized as of great feeding value, yet hundreds of thousands of tons were sold for a few dollars a ton, or burned, or run into streams, for there was no market. Cottonseed meal as a feeding stuff was at that time unknown. Holes were dug into the ground at the cotton gins and the seed was buried as a means of getting rid of it. Distillers' and brewers' grains, starch factory by-products, molasses, oatmeal by-products, oat clippings, and many others were frequently piled up on vacant lots to decay or run into the streams, or given to such farmers as could be induced to haul them away, and the earliest practical use of them was by the manufacturers who fed cattle with them in their wet or underground state at the factories. No attempt was made to dry them or put them into form to be utilized commercially. Instead of being sources of great revenue to the manufacturer, they were, in many instances, the cause of great expense. Because of the waste and expense and the low prices realized, the cost of the main products--the food for human beings--was very greatly increased."[39] "Here is a fact worth careful noting, that in these days of close competition, every cent realized for a by-product is credited to the cost of producing the main product--the human food--and that in addition to itself being converted into additional food for man, that is, into meat, dairy products, poultry, eggs, etc., its sale operates directly in a very large way as a saving to the consumer upon the main product from which it is derived. In other words, there is only one profit figured, and that is upon the main product--the food for man--the by-product being figured solely as such, sold for what it will bring, and the returns credited to the cost in figuring cost prices for the main product. "The problem of feeding the world--much less the problem of feeding the people of the United States--had not as yet commenced to trouble the scientist, the statesman, or the business man of the day. No one expected that in the short space of sixty years, all of our available lands would be occupied and that our population would have increased from 31,000,000 to 91,000,000 people, and that the problem of the cost of living, the cost of food, would, during the lives of people then living, be the thought and problem uppermost in the minds of our people. That this is the thought uppermost in the minds of our population today is evidenced by the daily conversations of our friends, by what we read in the newspapers, and by the action of Congress and our National Government in providing a commission for investigation of its cause." The following data was taken from the Statistical Report of the Illinois State Board of Agriculture, December 1, 1913,--(Assessor's Reports) _Illinois Pasture Lands_ Year Acreage 1877 4,367,603 1878 3,983,450 1879 4,193,884 1880 4,257,054 1881 2,206,621 1882 4,697,966 1883 4,752,828 1884 5,085,817 1885 5,417,147 1886 5,537,873 1887 5,630,571 1888 5,796,935 1889 5,679,874 1890 5,083,438 1891 4,681,972 1892 4,338,899 1893 4,954,871 1894 5,052,952 1895 4,631,270 1896 4,389,666 1897 4,745,917 1898 4,669,270 1899 4,880,101 1900 4,857,961 1901 4,774,062 1902 4,569,905 1903 4,447,287 1904 4,377,486 1905 4,359,426 1906 4,243,030 1907 4,308,402 1908 4,022,598 1909 3,807,796 1910 3,970,302 1911 3,819,412 1912 3,593,523 1913 3,521,966 (United States Census, and Year Books of Agricultural Department) Year Acres of Av. Val. of F. and Av. Val. Acres of Imp. Land Build's. per acre Per Farm Far. Land 1850 5,039,545 $ 7.99 $ 1,663 12,037,412 1860 13,096,374 15.96 3,480 20,911,989 1870 19,329,952 28.45 4,358 25,882,861 1880 26,115,154 31.87 4,598 31,673,645 1890 25,669,060 41.41 6,140 30,498,277 1900 27,669,219 53.84 7,588 32,794,728 1910 28,048,323 108.32 15,505 32,522,937 Year Percent Percent Percent Percent Farm Land in Ill. Increase Increase of Land of Farm in Farms in Farm Area in Land Total Cultivated Land Farms Improved 1850 33.6 41.9 1860 88.1 73.7 58.3 62.6 1870 41.5 23.8 72.2 74.7 1880 26.1 22.4 88.3 82.5 35,867,520 32,522,937 1890 -5.9 -3.7 85.0 84.2 1900 9.8 7.5 91.4 84.5 1910 -4.6 -0.8 90.7 86.2 (United States Census Report) Year Population No. Farms Average Size of Farms 1790 1800 5,641 1810 24,520 1820 147,178 1830 343,031 1840 685,866 1850 851,470 76,208 158. acres 1860 1,711,951 143,310 145.9 " 1870 2,539,891 202,803 127.6 " 1880 3,077,871 255,741 123.8 " 1890 3,826,352 240,681 126.7 " 1900 4,821,550 264,151 124.2 " 1910 5,638,591 251,872 129.1 " Year No. B. C. No. B. C. No. B. C. Per Per Farm Per Capita Acre Farm Land (Population) 1850 7.1 .63 .0045 1860 9.9 .83 .0067 1870 7.7 .62 .0060 1880 7.8 .65 .0063 1890 7.1 .46 .0056 1900 7.07 .38 .0057 1910 4.9 .22 .0038 _The Corn Crop of Illinois for Fifty-four Years._ Year Acreage Yield Price 1860 3,839,159 30 42½ 1861 3,839,159 30 24 1862 3,458,903 40 23 1863 3,773,349 22 62 1864 4,192,610 33 75 1865 5,032,996 35 29½ 1866 4,931,783 32 43 1867 4,583,655 24 68 1868 3,928,742 34 48 1869 5,237,068 23 57 1870 5,720,965 35 35 1871 5,310,469 38 32 1872 5,468,040 40 24 1873 6,839,714 21 32 1874 7,421,055 18 56 1875 8,163,265 34 34 1876 8,920,000 25 31 1877 8,935,411 30 28 1878 8,672,088 29 22 1879 7,918,881 39 32 1880 7,754,545 33 33 1881 7,157,334 24 53 1882 7,371,950 24 42 1883 7,304,596 25 36 1884 6,898,819 33 29 1885 7,212,657 32 28 1886 7,153,289 25 30 1887 6,719,126 19 41 1888 7,047,813 39 28 1889 6,988,267 35 23 1890 6,114,226 27 45 1891 5,754,147 38 38 1892 5,188,432 26 35 1893 6,416,488 26 30 1894 6,705,476 31 39 1895 6,922,921 39 21 1896 6,881,400 42 17 1897 7,051,527 34 21 1898 6,943,992 31 26 1899 6,941,548 37 26 1900 8,050,550 38 31 1901 8,077,621 23 58 1902 8,199,031 39 35 1903 7,955,980 35 34 1904 7,875,471 36 39 1905 7,698,411 40 38 1906 7,621,562 37 36 1907 7,294,873 35 44 1908 6,780,507 31 57 1909 7,288,563 36 52 1910 6,889,721 41 37 1911 6,623,579 38 55 1912 6,878,797 39 40 1913 6,635,847 27 63 [Illustration: Showing the corn acreage, pasture acreage, number of beef cattle, and the population of the state of Illinois from 1850 to 1914 inclusive.] FOOTNOTES: [39] An address by George A. Chapman, President of the American Feed Manufacturers' Association, delivered at Washington, D. C., November 17, 1913. BIBLIOGRAPHY Topography of the Land. Report of Bu. of An. Ind. 1885. p. 362. People. The U.S. Census Report. Interviews with old settlers. Cattle and Cattle Feeding. Report of Bu. of An. Ind. 1885. p. 365. Cattle Feeding Industry. Wallace's Farmer. 1913. Thesis by Garver: "History of Dairy Industry in Illinois." The Breeder's Gazette. July. 1913; Feb. 1894. Lecture by Professor Rusk. Chicago Market. "Facts and Figures" by Wood Brothers, Live Stock Commission Merchants, Chicago. 1906. Report of Bu. of An. Ind. 1884. The Prairie Farmer. 1887. p. 160. Life of Tom C. Ponting. Scientific American. The Meat Industry of America. 1909. Bu. of An. Ind. Report. 1885-86. Cattle Barons and Pioneer Drovers. Bu. of An. Ind. Report. 1885. The Breeder's Gazette. July 16, Aug. 6, 1913. Story of Tom Ponting's Life. The Range Industry. The Breeder's Gazette. July 16, 1913. Farm, Field and Stockman. 1880. Texas Cattle. The Prairie Farmer. July 18, 1885. p. 452. The Pure Bred Industry. The Prairie Farmer. May 9, 1885. p. 292 Feb. 1, 1885. p. 84; Nov. 14, 1885. p. 741. 1895. The Country Gentleman. Dec. 4, 1879. Sanders' History of Herefords. p. 348. Bu. of An. Ind. Report. 1885. The Country Gentleman. July 30, 1857, 1858. The Cultivator and The Country Gentleman. 1857. Sale Catalog of Anderson and Findley--Angus Herd. 1901. Sanders' History of Herefords, p. 348; 352-357. Cattle Plagues. Bu. of An. Ind. Report. 1884. p. 16, 1886. The Feed Industry of the United States. An address by Geo. A. Chapman, President of the American Feed Manufacturers' Association. Delivered at Washington, D. C., Nov. 17, 1913. Statistics. U. S. Census Reports. U. S. Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture. ACKNOWLEDGMENT I desire to acknowledge the personal assistance and supervision of Professor H. P. Rusk under whose direction the work was planned and carried on. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES Added opening quotation marks to all paragraphs where a quotation spans several paragraphs. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. Enclosed underlined font in _underscores_. Enclosed signatures in ~tildes~.