Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/31

 THE ANIMAL-BREEDINO INDUSTRY 25

formed of the extent and importance of this breeding industry. We shall confine onr attention to the United States^ remembering that ex- cept in certain rather restricted lines^ the animal-breeding industry in this country has as yet had no special or intensive development.

The following table shows the number of living domestic animals of various kinds which were on farms in the United States on January 1^ 1912, together with their estimated farm value. The figures take no account of the vast numbers of horses, for example, which are not on farms.

TABLE n

NUMBEB AND YaLUE OF FARM JjJVK STOCK IN THX UNITED STATES ON

January 1, 1912

Kind of stock Number Value

Hones 20,509,000 $2,172,694,000

Mules 4,362,000 544,359,000

Milch eattle 20,699,000 815,414,000

Other cattae (chiefly beef) 37,260,000 790,064,000

Sheep 52,362,000 181,170,000

Swine 65,412,000 523,328,000

Total 200,602,000 $5,027,029,000

Each one of these two hundred million animals was produced by a definite breeding operation. Somewhere somebody, with more or less care and thought as to the result, mated together two animals to pro- duce each one of the individuals or litters which lumped together give this enormous total. The mere statement of such large figures conveys little impression to the mind. Let us try by comparison to see what the figures really mean. If all the live stock on farms in the United States on January 1, 1912, had been sold at a price such as to realize the estimated farm value in cash, and then the money so obtained had been equally divided, each individual man, woman and child in the country would have received as his share from this transaction $54.66. Further- more the farm value of live stock represented an amount sufficient to pay the whole principal of the public debt of the United States (equal to $2,906,760,548.66 on October 1, 1913) nearly twice over.

This same sum of money would support the common schools of the United States for more than 12 years, assuming the same rate of school expenses as obtained in 1908-09. The mules or the swine each alone, if converted into cash, would pay all the common school expenses for more than a year, the cattle for four years, and the horses more than five years. The sheep of the coimtry on January 1, 1912, were worth more than one and a half times as much as the entire property (lands, build- ^gs, equipment, etc.) of all the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts in the United States in 1910, the last year for which figures were available when this was written.

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