"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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration: _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]