THE CATTLE TRADE AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES OF MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN, AND TENNESSEE.

Hon. NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner of Agriculture:

SIR: The following are the results of my investigations of the present year as to the condition and importance of the cattle trade and allied industries of the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ten

nessee:

MICHIGAN.

In its natural conditions the State of Michigan was not well adapted to stock-growing. The circumstances affecting the commerce, manufacturing, and other industries of the State were not such as tended to rapidly develop farming, nor were they likely to foster the growth of the live-stock interest. The lower or southern tiers of counties were on the lines of travel along which the tide of immigration flowed before the completion of the through lines of railroad in Canada. In those southern counties were located the railroads which first crossed the State connecting the east with the country beyond the timbered region; the result was that those counties were settled at a comparatively early date. But the larger part of the State was at one side of the course of travel, and formed as it might be described, a cove or bight beside the stream of immigration, into which only a small part of the great current eddied, the rest flowing on toward the newly discovered and far more tempting prairies of Illinois and the west. Thus the settlement of Michigan has gone on slowly. Of the 36,655,200 acres of land in the State, only 12,207,220 acres were, in the year 1885, included in farms; and even of the land in farms only 7,280,775 acres were at the time named improved, the remainder being covered by forest. Yet, Michigan offers advantages to the farmer, and especially to the dairyman. The State is within easy reach of large markets, has good soil and a comparatively equable climate, in which the extremes of temperature that occur in some of the prairie States are never felt. The water supply is abundant and good, and droughts seldom, if ever, occur.

The State is without a single mountain, and no hills worthy of the name are seen in the southern part or lower peninsula. Rising by very slight grades from the low flat lands at the head of Lake Erie and along the rivers Detroit and St. Clair, and the low shores of Lakes St. Clair and Huron, the land nowhere reaches an elevation greater than is needed to give the drainage required. A very large part of the interior is a rolling clay soil, covered by vegetable mold; but on the west side of the State and in the northern end of the lower peninsula there are considerable tracts of sandy land. On

the shore of Lake Michigan this land has become famed as a profit able fruit-growing region. That part of the State lying north and west of the Straits of Mackinaw and Lake Huron is known only as a region of copper, iron, and timber. Little farming is done there, and the few cattle kept are raised for the purpose of supplying their owners with milk and butter, for use in the yoke, or for replenishing the stock. There are in the eleven counties of the upper peninsula, from which reports have been received, only 2,866 milch cows and 3,530 other cattle, being 1.2 cows and 1.6 other cattle for each 100 acres included in the farms of those counties. In the year 1880 there were in those eleven counties 1,760 cows and 2,726 other cattle, the population having been 85,030 at that time.

Fifty years ago nearly all of the surface of the State of Michigan was covered by heavy forests. Having no means for learning the character and extent of the prairie regions of the West, then comparatively unknown, the people of Michigan had no idea of the value their timber would have within a quarter of a century. Many of them did not even know that vast and fertile fields lay ready for the plow only a few days' journey away. Most of the pioneers had not been taught to believe that a farm could be made in any way other than by the exceedingly laborious and tedious one of clearing away forests, digging up stumps, and cutting down bushes that sprang up in the clearings until at last the forest should be finally subdued and the fields yield harvests in plenty and comparative ease. As in all somber forests, the forage in Michigan was of inferior quality and scant in quantity, having little nutrition for stock. That which grew on the sedgy margins of the ponds or on the boggy marshes was little or no better than that which grew under the trees. So small was the supply of food for the stock of the pioneer, that tender trees were often felled that the starving animals might gnaw the twigs and bark to keep themselves alive until spring should cause the scanty crop of grass to grow again. Scattered throughout the State are many small lakes, on the shores of which sedges sprang up early in the spring, and a little pasturage appeared on the banks of streams where clear spots were, but in the most favored places there was little to encourage stock-growing.

Lying as it does in the midst of great bodies of water, Michigan is usually covered in winter by deep snows. They come early and stay late. The vapors which rise from the broad expanses of water, warmed by summer suns and by the heat of the earth beneath their depths, meet the chilling north winds of autumn, and are driven over the land, to fall in thick blankets, that protect the fields of grain and the trees and vines. In spring the lakes are covered by floating fields of ice, that grind along the base of the hills of frozen spray on the shores. These cool the winds of early spring, as the chill waters do later, and retard the thawing of the snow. They keep back the springing of the grass and the opening of buds until after the open prairies of the West are ready for the plow. While these causes serve to discourage stock-growing, they have operated to make Michigan one of the best fruit-growing States in the Union. Yet despite all obstacles Michigan was eleventh in a list of forty-seven States and Territories, in the year 1884, in the number of milch cows, and twenty-first in that of oxen and other cattle owned by their people. As in all forest regions, the pioneer had no desire to own more cattle than were required to answer the immediate demands of his family. Almost invariably a cow was taken with the family to the

new home to supply milk. In most cases a yoke of oxen was also driven into the wilderness, hauling the househeld effects to their destination and afterward helping to clear the ground of logs and stumps and in plowing and other farm work. For these few animals the stalks of corn raised furnished a goodly quantity of forage; for other food wanted they hunted in the woods. As the cow could furnish a large quantity of food for the family more directly and with less attention from her owners than was required for the production of a like quantity of food by the aid of the other stock, there was a general desire to increase the number of cows as fast as forage could be got for their support. Comparatively little beef was eaten by the pioneers. Game was for years abundant, as it is even now in some parts of the State that have been settled for years. Venison and other game supplied much of the meat eaten during the early days by the farmers, and pork to a large extent took the place of game as the latter became scarce. This has usually occurred in other wooded regions, because the domesticated pig can, like his wild ancestors, get in forests from roots, nuts, and fruits a large part of, if not all, the food needed, and fatten where horned cattle could scarcely find food enough to sustain life. In Michigan the growing pigs roamed at will in the woods, as they do even now where the forests have not been cleared away, getting no other food than they found for themselves until autumn came and maize was fed to fatten them. As settlers entered the State and forests gave way to cultivated fields villages appeared, towns grew, and railroads gave facilities for sending the products of the farms to market. All these created a demand for products which had before been of comparatively little value. Farmers found a ready sale for the butter and cheese they made, and as these articles could be produced with little or no addition to the labors of the men, and were more easily disposed of than the more bulky products of the farm could be, there was naturally a disposition to increase the number of milch cows rather than to raise stock for beef. The result is that of the whole cattle supply of the State in the year 1885 fully 47.8 per cent. were milch cows, only eight other States-Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delawareshowing as large a percentage of milch cows in their herds. All of of the States named have easy access to or have within their borders large markets in which milk and butter meet ready sale.

PASTURAGE AND FORAGE.

Of the 36,655,200 acres of land in the State of Michigan, there were in the year 1885 only 12,207,220 in farms, the rest having been almost entirely in woodland in its natural condition, except so far as the ax of the lumberman had cut out the larger trees. Of the land included in farms, only 7,280,775 acres were improved, the remaining 4,926,425 acres being woodland pastures. The forage in these wood lots is not invariably poor, but in few if any tracts of forest can pasturage be found as good as that of the open prairies of the West. The larger part of the pasturage of Michigan is in fields that have been cultivated and seeded. The forage thus obtained is supplemented by the growths found in the cultivated fields after the crops have been removed each year. The clovers, timothy, and some bluegrass are the staple plants found in the pastures. They thrive well in all parts of the State, even in the extreme northern part of the

lower peninsula, the climate there being much modified by the large bodies of water near.

Of hay there was produced in the State in the year 1884 some 1,648,665 tons from 1,365,834 acres, the average yield having been 1.21 tons per acre, the acreage and the average yield having been greater than in any previous year except 1883. The average yield of hay per acre for the seven years ended with 1884 was 1.23 tons; the average number of tons harvested per annum during that period having been 1,362,935. In the same period the average area planted to maize was 780,352 acres, from which an average yearly yield of 40,978,611 bushels was obtained, or 52.5 bushels per acre. In the year 1884 the area in corn was 802,988 acres, from which an average of 59.1 bushels was harvested.

Oats form an important forage crop in Michigan. In the year 1885 there were 717,854 acres in oats in the State, from which 25,841,525 bushels were harvested, being an average of 35.98 bushels per acre. The straw from the oats crop forms an important addition to the forage supply, as do the corn-stalks also. The latter are usually cut when the corn is harvested, and are carefully stacked, housed, or otherwise protected from the weather, instead of being allowed to remain standing as they grew, to be eaten by the stock or trampled under foot, as they are in the prairie States.

Hay, corn-stalks, and straw form the major part of the rations of the stock of Michigan, as of other States; but these are supplemented by barley, of which grain an average of 37,576 acres per annum was grown during the seven years ended with 1884, the average yearly yield having been 808,145 bushels, or 21.5 bushels per acre. Pease are also fed in a few instances. In the year named above 851,410 bushels of pease were grown on 42,529 acres. It can not be said that pease form a very large part of the food supply, but there seems to be no reason why they should not be fed much more freely, except that many farmers seem to think that pease are worth more in the market than they are as rations for stock. Apples have often been feed freely to the cattle, especially in years when the apple crop has been large and prices so low that the owners of orchards thought that they would not be paid for the labor and expense of gathering and marketing the fruit. Bran, roots, oil-cake, and oil-meal are used to a large extent in some of the older dairy districts of the State.

WATER SUPPLY.

Throughout all Michigan the water supply was abundant in the early days of the State; but as a large part of the water was from swampy places the quality was not always good. The effect of the drinking of water tainted by soaking in the rotting vegetation of swamps was often tasted in the milk and butter. No worse effect seemed to follow than a slightly offensive taste and odor. Cattle seldom showed symptoms of the milk sickness that proved so disastrous to cattle and to human beings in Indiana and Illinois in early dayssymptoms which occasionally appear even now. Michigan has few large rivers and none of great length. In the south the St. Joseph rises near the town of Hillsdale, in the county of that name, and flowing westward empties into Lake Michigan. Rising within a few rods of the source of the St. Joseph, the river Raisin flows eastward to Lake Erie. Twenty-five or thirty years ago both streams, like all others in this part of the State, were clear and pure, fed by

springs along the greater part of their courses. The volume of water in them has diminished since the forest was cleared away. Some of the small tributaries to the rivers mentioned now fail in the latter part of the summer months, and become series of stagnant pools; but this is not so generally the case as in the prairie States.

The Kalamazoo, the Grand, and the Saginaw are the other large streams in the southern half of Michigan, and the Au Sable and the Manistee drain the northern part of the lower peninsula. All of the rivers mentioned, and the smaller ones scattered through the State, are fed by innumerable tributaries intersecting every section of land in the State. In nearly all parts of Michigan many little lakes are found, around the edges of which grow reeds and coarse sedges and grasses. These ponds or lakes are fed by cold and pure springs, and never become stagnant. The water in nearly all of them is cool and palatable. Usually the bottoms are sandy or gravelly. No better watering places for stock could be devised, as the animals never become stuck in the mire, never lack for an abundance of pure and cool water, and find in the ponds a pleasant refuge from the flies and heat. Altogether, Michigan may be said to be as well supplied with water fit for stock as could be wished. In every part of the State an ample supply of good well water can be found at a moderate depth; in some places flowing wells have been made by boring a few scores of feet. It seems to be more than probable that many generations will pass away before the general supply of flowing water will be much lessened, as the forest disappears slowly.

In the upper peninsula the water supply is unsurpassed in quality, flowing through rocky channels from springs in hills so covered by forests that they will probably remain practically undisturbed for years, for it seems scarcely likely that so rugged a district will become a farming region before the whole prairie country of the West shall have become occupied by farms.

DISTRIBUTION OF CATTLE.

In Michigan the growth of the cattle interest has been rather slow, for reasons already mentioned, as compared with the growth of the same interest in some parts of the Western States; yet it has been creditable as compared with the increase of the number of cattle in the United States as a whole. It is worthy of note that during the decade ended with 1870 there was a gain of 14 per cent. in the cattle supply of Michigan, whereas in the same period the supply of cattle of the whole country showed a decrease of 7 per cent. The table which follows shows the changes made in the supply of cattle in the whole United States each decade since 1850 and since the census of 1880 was taken, and the percentage of increase from time to time since 1850: