Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

end, at the Virginia line. The peculiar situation of the valley and its surroundings insures a comparatively low temperature in summer and mild winters, as the winds from the warm Gulf of Mexico draw up along the whole length, bringing warmth in winter and frequent rains in summer.

In the twenty counties which occupy these favored lands, covering 9,200 square miles and forming the largest of the eight great natural divisions of the State, there were in 1880 a total of 141,491 cattle. Of these 82,091 were steers, bulls, and other animals, not milch cows nor working oxen. oxen there were 3,920. The cows produced milk of which 178,456 Of milch cows there were 55,480 and of working gallons were sold by farmers in the year covered by the last United States census report; of butter 3,371,659 pounds were sold, and 47,869 pounds of cheese were sold in that year. In detail the number of cattle of each class in the several counties at the time mentioned, and the quantity of milk, butter, and cheese sold from farms are shown in the table subjoined:

EAST TENNESSEE VALLEY.

[graphic]

When the last numbering of the live stock of Tennessee was done, Hawkins County, on the line of Virginia, had 444 working oxen, which was more than any other county in East Tennessee then had. Campbell County, in the extreme northwestern part of this division of the State, had 442 oxen, and Claiborne, also adjoining the Virginia line, had 410. Hancock County, between Claiborne and Hawkins Counties, and, like them, adjoining the Virginia line, was next in rank as far as relates to its supply of working cattle, having had 302. No other one of the twenty counties had 300 oxen. Greene County, near the northeastern corner of the State, had 6,043; Of milch cows, Knox County came next with 5,504, and Hawkins came third with 4,829. Of other cattle, Hawkins had 6,565, Knox County had 6,996, and Greene County had 8,520. Knox was first among the counties in the quantity of milk and butter sold; Greene County was second as to butter sold, and Hawkins was third. As to sales of cheese, Knox

County was first, Sullivan County, in the northeastern corner of the State, was second, and Greene County was third.

Doubtless the fact that Knoxville, the most important town in the valley, offered a ready market for dairy products, did much if not more than any one cause to encourage the development of dairying in Eastern Tennessee, and to put Knox County in the first place among all the counties of the valley in the quantity of milk, butter, and cheese sold; but others have ascribed the marked advance of the dairy industry there to the fact that the pastures have been carefully improved and extended, and to the other fact that numbers of Jersey cattle have been introduced, and have greatly increased the butterproducing powers of the general supply of cows. The importation of Jerseys had another effect usually noticed where purely-bred stock of any kind are taken into a neighborhood. Their appearance was followed by greater interest in the stock on hand, and the example set by owners of animals of great value led breeders of the common stock to give more liberal rations and better shelter and care generally to their cattle. Still, although Jerseys and a few HolsteinFriesian cattle have been taken to this valley, very few, if any, farms are devoted to dairying exclusively or even largely.

It is estimated that fully 20 per cent. of the cattle in the northern half of the great valley of East Tennessee have been improved by the influence of good blood. Some estimate the percentage of improvement as including many more cattle, one gentleman stating that 90 per cent. were grades; but this is obviously an error. It is known that Durham cattle were taken to this region fully fifty years ago by several planters; Jerseys were taken in thirty-five years ago by C. W. Chatterton, Devons ten years ago, and Holstein-Friesians in 1884, by C. M. McGhee. The last-named gentleman says of the cattle interest of the valley :

Seventy-five per cent. of the stock is unimproved, hardy, healthy, and good "shifters." The grades among our stock have touches of the blood of the Shorthorns, Jerseys, Devons, and Holsteins. Our cattle are generally grown for beef, and we have very few dairy farms. Every farmer, and almost every head of a family, keeps one or more cows. No cattle have ever been brought here for grazing or for fattening, but the calves born here are carefully saved, only a very small per cent. being sold for veal. The cattle raised on small farms are collected by the larger farmers, taken to the mountains east or west of us, or pastured on valley lands. In September quite large lots are collected, and at two years old are sold to Virginians as stockers. Therefore we prefer yearlings for grazing. Our best farmers winter two-year-olds on hay and stalk fodder; begin feeding grain in March, put them on grass in May, and sell them as fat cattle in the last half of June. Seventy per cent. are sold as stockers. The introduction of good blood and better management than of old has enabled us to market our cattle at least a year younger than they were marketed ten or fifteen years ago. Our beeves are shipped to Virginia or to Maryland.

Farming and grazing lands are worth $25 per acre; mountain lands, $2. Corn is worth 60 cents per bushel and hay $20 per ton here. The water supply of East Tennessee is pure spring-water. We have no swamps nor malaria. It is a model country. Orchard-grass, blue-grass, red-top, and clover are the forage plants most commonly found on our grazing lands. Of diseases of cattle none are known here, except an occasional case of milk sickness near the mountain foot-hills. Several years ago some Florida and Texas cattle in passing through killed all cattle that followed them in pasture. In fact, it may be said with truth that our cattle are absolutely healthy.

Mr. Thomas P. Graham, writing of the northern counties of the valley, says:

On pastures alone our cattle make from 80 to 100 pounds growth per month. They weigh from 1,100 to 1,300 pounds when turned off, being largely red or roan

Shorthorn grades. We never kill any calves here, keeping the males for beef and the heifers for breeding. They cost us nothing more than a little care an an occasional salting, say once or twice a week. We usually provide them with open sheds for shelter in winter. We do not use any grain in fattening except a little corn; sometimes we use green or winter pasturage. As the sons in the family or the owners of the stock attend to cattle, no account of the cost of attendance can be given. It is nominal.

From Grainger County Mr. A. X. Shields writes:

Probably one-third of our cattle are one-fourth to one-half Shorthorn blood. About three-fourths of them are sent to market when grass fat, going usually to Petersburgh or to Norfolk, Va., or to Baltimore. Corn is worth 65 cents a bushel and hay $15 per ton. In addition to these we feed oats, barley, bran, and shorts. The cost of attendance on our herds is nominal; in fact, there is no data from which to estimate it. Winter feeding for market does not pay well here, and summer pasturing is much preferred. Our cattle are turned on good pasturage in February, and between April and the middle of June are sold. Orchard, timothy, red-top, and a mixture of blue-grass and clover are our forage plants. In 1884 some murrain appeared here; perhaps 20 head died in this section; otherwise the stock has been perfectly healthy.

It appears that a few stockers are taken from the mountains of western North Carolina to the valley counties of East Tennessee for grazing, and that of the matured beeves many are sent to market grass fat. Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Charleston, and Atlanta are all markets to which cattle from this region are sent. Mr. J. W. Taylor, jr., of Grainger County, states that corn was worth 65 to 75 cents per bushel, hay $15, and straw $2.50 per ton. Of corn, 20 bushels, and of hay, 150 to 200 pounds per month are required in fattening a bullock fully. The cost of keeping cattle in summer is almost nothing. Mr. Taylor corroborates fully the statements of others about the healthfulness of the cattle.

A few cases of black-leg (anthrax) appeared in one of the counties adjoining Hancock County in 1884, and occasional cases of murrain have been seen in the northern part of the valley. In a letter, Mr. M. D. Fleener says that in Hancock and neighboring counties little feeding of cattle is done in summer, as cattle will live and fatten without it. The cost of caring for a bunch of cattle during the winter will not, in his estimation, exceed $13 to $15. Cane seed, pumpkins, and meal are the additions to the usual rations of corn, hay, and fodder, given to fattening stock.

The easternmost division of Tennessee consists of that part which lies on the western slope of the Unaka range of mountains, and has an area of 2,000 square miles of a mean elevation of 5,000 feet. In this division are seven counties, in which there were, in 1880, of population, 85,671, and of cattle, 46,586. This shows that there were an average of 23.3 cattle per square mile, while the population was 42.8 people per square mile. This is evidence that the people of these rocky counties have found that grazing is the most profitable branch of agriculture they can follow, and that they have adopted it more completely than have the people of the great valley, where there were only 15.4 cattle and 31.9 people to the mile. Moreover, the mountain counties sold an average of 11.9 pounds of butter per capita of population in the year covered by the last United States census, while those of the valley counties sold 11.5 pounds per capita, and those of the table-land counties sold 10.4 pounds. It is true that most of the counties in this division extend into the valley, but even there they are mountainous.

The supply of cattle in each of the mountain counties is given in detail in the accompanying statement, as is also the quantity of milk, butter, and cheese sold from each:

[blocks in formation]

Testimony furnished by scores of observing witnesses, living in widely separated parts of the State, and thoroughly acquainted with the natural and the artificial conditions affecting the cattle interests, shows that Tennessee affords many and great advantages to those who breed cattle for beef alone, or who make dairying their occu pation. While the climate of the mountains differs from that of the valleys, and that of each of the great valleys is in some degree different from that of the others, the climate of the whole State is comparatively mild and equable. The synclinal axes of the valleys. lie almost exactly in the line of the winds which blow, during the major part of the year, from the southwest, bringing warmth and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, to raise the temperature, make the winters spring-like in their mildness, and prevent the drying of the pastures in summer. The ridges and the mountain ranges rise as barriers to completely shelter the valleys by turning aside the northwest winds, which are the only cold ones that blow over the country west of the Appalachian system of mountain ranges. In nearly every part of the State the mountains are covered by wild grasses which afford good pasturage, which is in much of the State as yet free to all who choose to drive their herds to the range. The cultivated grasses thrive wherever the ground has been properly prepared. In the valley lands, particularly on the bottom-lands, timothy grows luxuriantly, and yields heavy crops of excellent hay. The clovers and lucerne thrive on land having loose subsoil, and other forage plants furnish an abundance of food for stock, while grain is grown in the valleys to supplement the fodder in feeding fattening cattle and those in the dairy. The water supply is unlimited in quantity, and of a quality that can not be surpassed. Lands and labor are cheap, and the cost of living is not great, therefore the cost of herding stock and of raising grain and forage for cattle is light, while the nearness to market gives to the Tennessee cattleowner very great advantage over the stock-raisers of the remote Southwest, who must, in fact, compete in the markets of the Atlantic coast with the stock-owners of this and other States east of the Mississippi.

Hay may be made in nearly every valley in Tennessee at small cost; yet in the census of 1880 the State was credited with the production of only 186,698 tons of hay, which was less than a quarter

of a ton for each of the 783,674 cattle of all classes then in the State. In 1870 the hay crop amounted to 116,582 tons, or about 360 pounds per head of cattle at that time in the State; in 1860 the hay crop was 143,499 tons, which was a little less than 270 pounds per head for the cattle in the State. In 1850 less than 200 pounds of hay for each of the cattle then in Tennessee was made, the total yield of hay having then been 74,091 tons; from which it appears that considerable progress has been made in hay production, and that there may be reason for the belief expressed that the time will come when plenty of hay will be made in the State to liberally feed all the cattle through the winters.

Dairying has made considerable progress in Tennessee. Previous to the year 1880 no account was found in the census reports of the General Government of the manufacture of cheese in factories. In the report of 1880, however, it was shown that there was made in the State 3,600 pounds of factory butter, and 9,000 pounds of factory cheese. The growth of the dairy interest is shown by the figures which follow:

[blocks in formation]

The circumstances described above are fully as favorable to the development of dairying as the best known in States that have long held the foremost places in the dairying industry in America, with the one exception that in those States there have been, in the many populous towns they contain, a greater number of active home markets than Tennessee possesses. But Tennessee has several lines of railroad crossing the State, and the Mississippi River on the west to furnish ready means of transportation for her surplus productions. There seems, therefore, to be ample grounds for the belief, confidently held by many Tennesseans, that their State is destined to become widely known as one of the leading butter and cheese producing States of the Union.

Respectfully submitted.

CHICAGO, ILL., January 1, 1887.

EDWARD W. PERRY.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »