FOOTNOTES:
[1] Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 1885, p. 362.
[2] United States Census Report and interviews with old settlers.
[3] Report of Bureau of Animal Industry, 1885, p. 365.
[4] Bureau of Animal Industry, 1885, p. 365-66
[II. CATTLE FEEDING INDUSTRY][5]
"When the farms of Illinois were first put into cultivation, the attention of the farmers was almost entirely devoted to grain raising. Wheat was cash and was the only product of the farm that could be sold for ready money. The virgin soils of the state gave to the pioneer large crop yields, but constant cropping soon began to tell on the soil and each year the crop yield became lighter. This depletion of the fertility of the soil by continuous cropping, together with a need for a near market for the grain crops, soon gave stimulus to an idea that cattle feeding would help restore the fertility of the soil and, at the same time, market the grain at home." From this time on, the production of beef in this state has been one of the most important phases of agriculture. In the southern part of the state, however, which was settled largely by French, and where the predominating cattle continued to be the mongrel bred stock, little attention was given to cattle feeding. These people turned their cattle out on the luxuriant grass and relied upon the meat and milk produced in that way.
"In the evolution or development of beef production that followed in Illinois and other corn-belt states, there has been two distinct stages, and it is now entering upon the third stage. The first stage was that in which cattle were fed to market corn, and also to increase the fertility of the soil, which was being depleted by the continuous cropping. The second stage was that in which the ranges had been broken up and the object was not to raise cattle to market corn but to raise corn to make beef." The third stage, or that upon which the industry is now entering, is that of baby beef making.
Seventy or eighty years ago, and for several years afterward, cattle were bred and fed, not primarily for beef production, but to market corn. The farmers of those days were accustomed to say: "I'll make my corn walk to market," or "I'll condense my freight," or "I'll grow packages in which I can condense my corn and put in the hay and pastures as well." Statisticians figured that about six tons of corn could be put into one ton of pork, about ten tons into one ton of beef, and from twenty to twenty-five tons into one ton of butter. There were very few railroads in the state at that time and farmers were forced to haul their corn and wheat thirty and forty miles to reach a station. And while freight rates were extortionately high on corn and wheat in proportion to their cash value, railroads were racing with each other to get the livestock trade. They gave passes, rebates, and quick service, and many other things to get the patronage of the cattle feeders and shippers. The country roads in Illinois were bad, the bridges were few and poor, and the farmers, therefore, soon came to realize that their corn must walk to market if it gave them any profit.
"The growing of the so-called packages in which to condense freight, and thereby sell corn to a better advantage, was an easy matter in those days. In the newer sections, away from the main lines of railroads, there was much open prairie land, which was covered with luxuriant grass. Cattle could be herded on this free grass on the prairies at a dollar a head from May to October, and then stalk fields could be had for ten cents an acre. Usually these stalk fields contained from twenty cents to thirty cents worth of corn per acre. The only expensive months for feeding were March and April, when either clover, timothy, or prairie hay had to be fed. The cost in the summer was only about twenty cents a month per head, in the winter about thirty-three cents. The total cost of growing a package was about $6.00."
The cattle herders in those days made contracts with the large operators to graze so many cattle at so much per head during the grazing season. The usual price for the entire season was from $1.00 to $1.50 per head. These cattle ranged from three to seven years old by the time they were ready for market and sold for about $25.00 per head.
An instance of the cattle herding industry, as it may be termed, is related by Mr. C. W. Yapp, now of Urbana, Illinois, who was one of the early herders in that country near Mahomet:
About 1855, at 13 years of age, Mr. Yapp began herding cattle for the then large cattle feeders of that part of the country. In the early spring of 1860, he started from Mahomet with a bunch of 12 cattle, to meet a large drove that was coming up from the southern part of the state. These cattle were native stock which had been collected over the state. The entire bunch numbering around 900, were driven to Drummer's Grove, near Gibson City. There they were branded and herded on the open prairie during the spring and summer. In the fall, they were returned to the lots of the large feeders, where they were fed out during the winter. The feed during the winter consisted mostly of shocked corn.
Some of the large cattle feeders bought their packages to be filled with corn, while others grew them. In either case, the primary aim was not to make beef, but to market the corn crop at a much better price than would be obtained if the winter was spent in hauling the corn to market at the nearest town. Naturally, these feeders fed corn with a lavish hand. They fed from twenty to thirty pounds to a steer per day, and if the steer became gorged and mussed over it, it was thrown out to the hogs. They kept corn before their cattle all the time. They argued that if you want solid beef, beef that will weigh like lead, give the cattle nothing but corn and water. They wanted big packages, nothing less than two-year-old steers past would do, and three and four-year-olds were preferable. They wanted steers that would be at least four years old when ready for market and that would weigh from 1500 to 1600 pounds. These steers were desirable because they would hold more corn than the smaller ones. Very little attention was given to the finish of the steers sent to market. They were all driven out together regardless of the degree of finish. It was not until some time in the eighties and nineties that much attention was given to the degree of finish in fat steers when sent to market.
After the open prairies became settled up and there was no more free grass at home, the feeders of Illinois and the adjoining states could buy their packages on the ranges on the plains west of the Mississippi river, or at the range cattle markets. Corn was still cheap and so were packages in the shape of stockers and feeders. The reason for this was that the great corn fields of Kansas and Nebraska were being opened up and the great national pastures from Canada to the Texas Panhandle had not yet become spotted and rendered useless by the homesteader. Speculation in semi-arid land had not set in, and the term "dry farming" had not been invented.
The great drouths caused the price of corn to fluctuate but the aggregate corn yield kept on increasing with increased acreage and usually the year following a drouth was one of superabundance of corn. Such was the year of 1895 following the drouth of 1894. The proportion of cattle per thousand population steadily increased. Meanwhile our cattle markets became centralized and were always full to overflowing. Everybody wondered where the cattle came from.
In the year of 1895, this system reached its climax. The question confronting the farmer at this time was: "Why did he continue growing corn and feeding cattle?" He grew corn because he could do it cheaply and more certainly than anything else. The farmer had begun to realize that the limit of good land watered by the rains of heaven would soon be reached. He would, therefore, hold on to his land and gain back all that he had lost in fertility by growing corn in the increased price of land that was sure to come in the near future. He had been feeding cattle to sell his corn with the idea also that cattle feeding and cattle grazing were good for the land. The limit of good land was not reached, however, nearly so soon as he had expected and when it was reached, land advanced in price more rapidly than even the most optimistic had anticipated. The year of 1895 marks the end of the first stage of beef production in Illinois as well as in the other corn belt states.
The Summer That the Rain Came Not
In the nineties (1896), cattle feeding in Illinois and the other corn belt states entered upon the second stage of its evolution or development. The purpose of feeding cattle during this stage was not to market corn but to make beef. The great corn crop of 1895 and 1896, following the drouth of 1894, gave very cheap corn. Cattle were cheap also. During the two years 1896-1897, business was on a standstill the whole country over, but the next year, 1898, business started in full blast; cattle began to advance in price, and the demand for feeders increased. As a consequence, the whole country was scoured for them, but it was found that the choicest ones had been sold off in 1894, and the early part of 1895. Cattle feeders, anxious to secure cattle to fill their feed lots, turned to other sources for their supply. They went into Mexico, Oregon, Colorado, and Tennessee, and bought their feeder cattle. When cattle went up in price, corn went up also, then labor began to gradually go up.
At that point began the advance in the value of land. The government had no more choice corn land. The two acres necessary to keep a cow during the summer and two more acres, the hay from which would keep her during the winter, doubled in price within the next fifteen years, but it did not increase in actual value as determined by the amount of grass or grain it would produce. It was at that time the people were confronted first with dear land, stockers, feeders, corn, hay, and beef. This all led the cattle feeders and the corn growers to begin studying out a method or system by which they could profitably grow corn to make beef instead of growing beef to market corn. The prices of fat cattle were very tempting, something unheard of ever before, but when it came to buying feeders, the margin was very little greater than it had been in previous years, and besides, corn was higher than it had ever been. The problem then was, how to get the most beef out of a bushel of corn.
Experiment stations had been doing work along that line for several years. They pointed out that the younger and smaller the animal is, the less will be the grain required to sustain the life-giving forces, or to run the machine, and a greater proportion will go to the building up of body tissue, hence the greater the profit in feeding young animals. Feeders began to drop out the two and three year old steers and replace them with baby beeves. Many feeders tried it but somehow or other they could not make it work according to the experimental evidence. They found no profit in feeding any kind of cattle. Many feed lots became empty and blue grass and clover pastures were plowed up and put into corn fields. If corn was worth more outside of the steer than it was in the steer, the farmer argued, why feed cattle? The landlord could get more rent from corn land than from grass land devoted to cattle grazing; therefore, he saw no profit in building expensive barns, sheds, and fences for cattle feeding.
In the summer of 1907, business was flourishing and packers were in need of money. To meet their needs, they flooded the western banks with commercial paper. They bought so few cattle that the price fell off at least 30 per cent in three months' time. The loss accrued by such a rapid decline in the price of fat cattle was so great that it paid for the commercial paper that had been issued by the packers. Such conditions as these hastened the process of depleting the feed yards and decreasing the number of cattle on the market.
"The cattle have left central Illinois and the grain elevator now distinguishes the landscape. The vast blue grass pastures of the ante-bellum period have disappeared, and corn tillage is the principal occupation of the agrarian population. Down in Morgan and Sangamon counties, even recollections of the cattle trade, as it existed in the days of John T. Alexander and Jacob Strawn, are being rapidly affected. A few cattle come in from the west to be fattened on corn, but summer grazing is the exception and the interest of the occupant of the land centers, not in the cattle market quotations, but in the price of corn.[6]
"All the evidence seems to point toward the conclusions that another change in the corn belt system of beef production is imminent.
"One of two things will happen or Illinois will quit the cattle business. Either some new breeding and rearing center must be developed, or Illinois feeders must return to breeding their own feeder steers.
"I believe that Illinois will not quit the cattle business. There is too much at stake besides the mere success or failure of the cattle business alone. First of all, this country needs the beef. The greatest people of the earth have been meat eaters, and I believe that the American people will continue to eat meat and will pay the price necessary to make its production profitable.
"Another consideration of vital importance, but too broad a subject for discussion in this connection, is the value of livestock as an aid to the maintenance of soil fertility. Then, too, for the sake of our economic stability, the livestock interest of the country must be preserved and encouraged. Professor Herbert W. Mumford is my authority for the statement that 80 % of the corn grown in the United States is fed to livestock. Picture, if you can, the effect upon corn belt land value and our economic situation generally if the country suddenly lost this market for 80 % of its corn crop.
"Regarding the possibility of another breeding center being developed, it may be said that there are other sections that can produce feeders much more cheaply than Illinois. There are large areas of cheap lands in some of the Gulf states with which Illinois could not compete in the production of feeder steers. But these sections are not interested in the production of cattle, and it is doubtful if the south ever produces a surplus of feeder steers. Hence, it seems that the probable solution of the whole question will be brought about by producing our own feeders.
"If Illinois does return to the cattle breeding business, it will not be on the old extensive scale that prevailed throughout the state a generation ago. Grass grown on these high priced lands is too expensive to be disposed of with so lavish a hand as it was thirty or forty years ago.
"A return to cattle breeding in Illinois will be coincident with a more general adoption of supplement for pasture. The use of smaller proportions of permanent pasture, more extensive use of rotated or leguminous pastures, the passing of the aged steers in our feed lots, and the inauguration of what may be called intensive systems of baby beef production."[7]
"In reviewing the cattle breeding and the cattle feeding situation in Illinois in 1894, Mr. J. G. Imboden stated that the outlook was not very encouraging. The question was, "Are the men who are feeding the grain and fodder crop of the farm any worse off than those grain farmers who are selling their grain on the market, or even the butcher, the grocer, the boot and shoe dealer, or the drygoods merchant?" They undoubtedly were not at that time. Competition was very close, profits small, and unless a business man was satisfied with a small profit, his competitor did the business. Such were the conditions that faced the cattle breeders and feeders at that time.
"From 5 % to 10 % of the feeding value of the crops on Illinois farms were left in the field; straw-stacks stood in the field where the thresher left them; stover stood on the field after the corn was husked, while on these same farms were stock that were shrinking from exposure and lack of feed."
The outlook for the feeder was very discouraging, but much more so for the breeder. There were no hopes for success for the breeder until the feeder had two or three years of success in order to make a market for the cattle that were bred. Strong efforts were being made to devise some methods of feeding the farm products more economically and in such a way as would mean more grain and better profits for the feeder.
"The cattle feeders of Illinois presumed that the time was nearing when feeder cattle of the best grade for grazing and feeding purposes would be hard to secure. While at that time there were plenty of cattle west of the Mississippi river, in Illinois there was a scarcity of breeding cattle to supply the demand. It was harder to buy a bunch of fifty uniformly good steers, throughout central Illinois especially, than it had been for fifteen years past. This was probably due to the fact that feeders had quit raising their feeding cattle and the breeders had changed from one breed to another in hopes of finding a breed that would give them greater returns. Again, many breeders had become very careless of the merits of the cattle on their farm."[8]