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 Imp. Land Av. Val. of F. and Build's. per acre Av. Val. Per Farm Acres of Far. Land Percent Increase in Farms Percent Increase in Farm Land Percent of Land Area in Farms Percent of Farm Land Improved Farm Land in Ill.

Total Cultivated

1850 5,039,545 $ 7.99 $ 1,663 12,037,412 33.6 41.9 35,867,520 32,522,937

1860 13,096,374 15.96 3,480 20,911,989 88.1 73.7 58.3 62.6

1870 19,329,952 28.45 4,358 25,882,861 41.5 23.8 72.2 74.7

1880 26,115,154 31.87 4,598 31,673,645 26.1 22.4 88.3 82.5

1890 25,669,060 41.41 6,140 30,498,277 -5.9 -3.7 85.0 84.2

1900 27,669,219 53.84 7,588 32,794,728 9.8 7.5 91.4 84.5

1910 28,048,323 108.32 15,505 32,522,937 -4.6 -0.8 90.7 86.2

(United States Census Report)

Year Population No. Farms Average Size of Farms No. B. C. Per Farm No. B. C. Per Capita (Population) No. B. C. Per Acre Farm Land

1790

1800 5,641

1810 24,520

1820 147,178

1830 343,031

1840 685,866

1850 851,470 76,208 158. acres 7.1 .63 .0045

1860 1,711,951 143,310 145.9 " 9.9 .83 .0067

1870 2,539,891 202,803 127.6 " 7.7 .62 .0060

1880 3,077,871 255,741 123.8 " 7.8 .65 .0063

1890 3,826,352 240,681 126.7 " 7.1 .46 .0056

1900 4,821,550 264,151 124.2 " 7.07 .38 .0057

1910 5,638,591 251,872 129.1 " 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

Showing the corn acreage, pasture acreage, number of beef cattle, and the population of the state of Illinois from 1850 to 1914 inclusive.

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