Read Ebook: History of the Beef Cattle Industry in Illinois by Farley Frank Webster

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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.

In the nineties , 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.

"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."

NUMBER OF BEEF CATTLE IN ILLINOIS BY YEARS FROM 1856 TO 1914.

Year Number of Beef Cattle in Illinois

"In reviewing the cattle breeding and the cattle feeding situation in Illinois in 1894, Mr. J. G. Imboden stated that the outlook was not very encouraging. The question was, "Are the men who are feeding the grain and fodder crop of the farm any worse off than those grain farmers who are selling their grain on the market, or even the butcher, the grocer, the boot and shoe dealer, or the drygoods merchant?" They undoubtedly were not at that time. Competition was very close, profits small, and unless a business man was satisfied with a small profit, his competitor did the business. Such were the conditions that faced the cattle breeders and feeders at that time.

"From 5 % to 10 % of the feeding value of the crops on Illinois farms were left in the field; straw-stacks stood in the field where the thresher left them; stover stood on the field after the corn was husked, while on these same farms were stock that were shrinking from exposure and lack of feed."

The outlook for the feeder was very discouraging, but much more so for the breeder. There were no hopes for success for the breeder until the feeder had two or three years of success in order to make a market for the cattle that were bred. Strong efforts were being made to devise some methods of feeding the farm products more economically and in such a way as would mean more grain and better profits for the feeder.

"The cattle feeders of Illinois presumed that the time was nearing when feeder cattle of the best grade for grazing and feeding purposes would be hard to secure. While at that time there were plenty of cattle west of the Mississippi river, in Illinois there was a scarcity of breeding cattle to supply the demand. It was harder to buy a bunch of fifty uniformly good steers, throughout central Illinois especially, than it had been for fifteen years past. This was probably due to the fact that feeders had quit raising their feeding cattle and the breeders had changed from one breed to another in hopes of finding a breed that would give them greater returns. Again, many breeders had become very careless of the merits of the cattle on their farm."

"In 1881, Oatman Brothers, of Dundee, Illinois, built the first silo in the state. At the eighth annual meeting of the Illinois State Dairyman's Association, held at Dundee, Illinois, December 14-16, 1881, Mr. E. J. Oatman read an article on "Silos and Ensilage.""

Mr. Oatman stated that some agricultural paper in Chicago had been agitating the building of silos in Illinois and had tried to induce him to build one. The stories that the paper told about the value of ensilage as a feed sounded too good to be true. The idea of cutting up green fodder, packing it away in a hole, and expecting to see it come out in first class condition, in the dead of winter, seemed to be impossible. A great many objections arose to such "cow kraut" as some called it. It would heat, ferment, and rot; therefore it was a very difficult matter to make people see its value as a feed.

Mr. Oatman, however, visited the farm of Messrs. Whitman and Burrell at Little Falls, New York, on February 1, 1880, for the purpose of seeing their silo and the condition of their ensilage. He made a thorough investigation and thereupon became convinced that ensilage was a success. He returned home to his farm at Dundee and made preparations to build a silo. His first silo was 49 feet by 43 feet by 20 feet deep, dug out into the ground. It was divided into three parts, all of which were made of concrete.

After the silo was finished, Mr. Oatman proceeded to fill it, which required thirteen days with a force of ten men, at a rate of about twenty-three tons per day. After it was filled, stone was placed on top, at the rate of about 150 pounds per square inch.

Mr. Oatman met with many discouragements with his new silo; the community at large thought it was a very foolish idea. Some said that if it did keep, the cattle would not eat it, and others still more radical, even hoped that he would lose it all, and said that any man who would try such a thing was crazy.

When the time came to open the silo, Mr. Oatman found that the silage was all fresh and nice with the exception of a few inches on top. His cattle took to it readily, and he found that it greatly increased the milk production of his dairy herd.

The use of ensilage as a feed for beef and milk production has become so general in Illinois since the first silo was built in 1881 that ensilage is now one of the staple feeds. While there are a few people who still think that the use of ensilage in the production of beef is a fad, practically every one agrees that it is economical in the production of milk.

Ensilage is a roughage and not a concentrate, and its profitableness in a fattening ration depends not so much upon its nutritive value as upon its succulence and palatability, the steers' ability to consume large quantities of it, and the fact that it makes possible the utilization of all of the corn plant, a large proportion of which would be wasted.

Every year sees a more general adoption of ensilage as a roughage, and with the inauguration of the present intensive system of baby beef production, and where the baby beeves are raised on the farm on which they are to be fed, ensilage is the most economical feed that can be used in maintaining the breeding herd.

"The situation of Chicago in the great agricultural center of the United States brought it into prominence at an early day as the center of the live stock trade. This position it has never lost. However great may be the development of other sections of the country, Chicago can not fail to continue to be the leader in this class of business. Its location as a railroad center and its position as a distributing point is made secure by the steadiness of its growth and the magnitude of its present operations. There is greater competition in this market than in any other. The Chicago market is the purchasing point, not only for the local packers, large and small, the exporters, and the speculators, but also for a great number of smaller packing houses scattered over the country, and for the feeders and breeders of the most fertile and largest agricultural sections of the United States."

Prior to the year of 1833, Chicago had no provisions to export, and as late as 1836, an actual scarcity of food there created a panic among the inhabitants.

The first shipment of cattle products from Chicago was made in 1841, by Newbury and Dale on the schooner, Napoleon, bound for Detroit, Michigan. This shipment consisted of 287 barrels of salted beef and 14 barrels of tallow.

Buildings: Dwellings 398 Drygoods stores 29 Grocery stores 26 Hardware stores 5 Drug stores 3 Churches 5

There were two weekly papers published in Chicago at this time: The American, a whig paper, and the Democrat.

The first market in the way of stock yards in Chicago was located on the north branch of the Chicago river. These yards were used chiefly for swine. In 1836, the first cattle yards were opened on a tract of land near twenty-ninth street and Cottage Grove avenue. A few pens had been erected here to accommodate the cattle trade. The first scales for weighing livestock ever used in that country were used in these yards.

In 1855, there were two regular stock yards in Chicago; one, called the Merrick Yard, is now known as the Sherman Yards, and the other was called the Bullshead Yard. A great many eastern people came to Chicago at this time to buy fat cattle to take back east. Most of the cattle they bought were driven over into Indiana to Michigan City, to be shipped on east. John L. Hancock was the only packer in Chicago at this time. Ice was not used, and packing was done during the cool seasons of the year.

One element of the success of Chicago as a market was the fact that stock might be pastured without charge on the prairies near the city, while the owners awaited favorable market conditions in the eastern states. The cattle were herded on the open prairies just outside of the city, and the buyers of Chicago rode out each day and bought the cattle in such numbers as they needed.

In 1865, the growth of the livestock traffic had increased so rapidly that the several railroad companies that centered in Chicago, together with the managers of the stock yards already existing, combined for the erection of the Union Stock Yards. These were opened for business on Christmas day, 1865.

"The meat industry of Chicago, from the purchase of the livestock to the shipment of the meat, in either the fresh or the cured condition, is carried on at the Union Stock Yards, which are located near the outskirts of the city. The yards cover exactly a square mile of ground. One-half of this area is covered with cattle pens, and the other half by huge establishments of the packing houses. The pens are surrounded by strong stockades, about shoulder high, and they are laid out in blocks with streets and alleys, in much the same fashion as an ordinary American town. The whole of this area, a half mile in width, and a mile in length, is paved with red brick; and here we see the first notable evidence of the effort to maintain the stock yards in a sanitary condition.

"The brick paving makes it possible to thoroughly clean both pens and streets, and this is done at regular and frequent intervals."

"Whatever may have been the conditions in the past, it is a fact that today the greatest care is exercised in the shipment and handling of the stock from the time they leave the farms until they reach the packing houses. The price that the animals will bring in the pens depends upon the conditions they present under the eye of the buyer, who represents the packing houses, and it is to the interest of the farmers, the cattlemen, and the commission men, to whom the cattle are consigned at the yards, that they shall receive the best food and the most careful attention up to the very hour at which the sale is made. They are shipped in special stock cars, in which they are carried as expeditiously as possible to the stock yards, where they are unloaded and driven to the pens. Here they are at once fed and watered, each pen containing a feeding trough and a water trough, into which a stream of fresh water is kept running.

"The cattlemen consign their stock to the various commission houses, and for receiving and selling the stock, there is a charge of, respectively, twenty-five cents and fifty cents a head. The purchase of the cattle is made by buyers, of whom each of the packing houses maintain a regular staff."

"About 1845, a bold editor left Buffalo, New York, then the greatest lake part of the country, and bravely ventured as far into the rowdy west as Chicago. Possibly the people here received him with generous hospitality; perhaps they treated him with something even more warming to the inner man; or it may be that as they filled him with solid chuck and, perhaps, with less solid refreshments, they took occasion to remark, with that modest and restrained hopefulness for which Chicago people have justly received credit, that Chicago was destined to become a town of some importance. Be that as it may, when that editor luckily found himself once more safe within his sanctum, he gave vent to his joy and overflowing gratitude by writing wild, enthusiastic predictions concerning the future of the town, which was then aspiring to rise above the rushes and wild rice of the Chicago river.

"Reckless of the opinion of the readers of his paper, perhaps trusting to their ignorance of the conditions of the out of the way place, this bold editor predicted that the day would come when Chicago would have an elevator capacious enough to hold 25,000 bushels of grain, and that in a single winter season, 10,000 cattle, and as many hogs, would be slaughtered and packed there.

"Beef packing was the leading industry of Chicago at that time, but no trustworthy statistics relating to the cattle traffic previous to 1851 have been preserved, and from 1851 until 1856 no account of the receipts of cattle were kept. This was probably due to the fact that a large number of those cattle that were brought to Chicago were held on the open prairies until sold to butchers to supply the requirements for local consumption. No accurate count of cattle disposed of in that way could well be obtained."

Statistics of the receipts of cattle at the Chicago Union Stock Yards from 1851 to 1913, inclusive, and the shipments from 1852 to 1884, inclusive:

Year Receipts Shipments 1851 22 566 1852 25 708 77 1853 29 908 2 657 1854 36 888 11 221 1855 39 865 8 253 1856 39 950 22 205 1857 48 524 25 502 1858 140 534 42 638 1859 111 694 37 584 1860 177 101 97 474 1861 204 579 124 146 1862 209 655 112 745 1863 300 622 187 048 1864 303 726 162 446 1865 333 362 301 637 1866 393 007 263 693 1867 329 188 203 580 1868 324 524 215 987 1869 403 102 294 717 1870 532 964 391 709 1871 543 050 401 927 1872 648 075 510 025 1873 761 428 574 181 1874 843 966 822 929 1875 920 843 696 534 1876 1 096 745 797 724 1877 1 033 151 703 402 1878 1 083 068 699 108 1879 1 215 732 726 903 1880 1 382 477 886 614 1881 1 498 550 938 712 1882 1 582 530 921 009 1883 1 878 944 966 758 1884 1 817 697 678 341 1885 1 905 518 1886 1 963 900 1887 2 382 008 1888 2 611 543 1889 3 023 281 1890 3 484 280 1891 3 250 359 1892 3 571 796 1893 3 133 406 1894 2 974 363 1895 2 588 558 1896 2 600 476 1897 2 554 924 1898 2 480 897 1899 2 514 446 1900 2 729 046 1901 3 031 396 1902 2 941 559 1903 3 432 486 1904 3 259 185 1905 3 410 469 1906 3 329 250 1907 3 305 314 1908 3 039 206 1909 2 929 805 1910 3 052 958 1911 2 931 831 1912 2 652 342 1913 2 513 074 1914

In April, 1869, a charter was granted by the state of Illinois to the East St. Louis Stock Yards Company. This company was authorized to issue stock to an amount not to exceed 0,000. The original charter of the company, which later operated the National Stock Yards, fixed the capital stock thereof at ,000,000, which was, subsequently, raised, by a vote of the stock holders, to an amount of 0,000, to meet the requirements of the rapidly growing business. When the National Stock Yards were completed, they were more convenient than were any others of their kind in the country.

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