Ohio History Journal

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The Beef Cattle Industry in Ohio

The Beef Cattle Industry in Ohio

Prior to the Civil War--II

By ROBERT LESLIE JONES*

 

 

v.  The Cattle Industry Outside the Specialized

Grazing and Feeding Regions

The grazing industry in Madison County and its neighbors and

the feeding industry of the Scioto Valley attracted so much attention

that it is difficult to realize that together they comprised only a minor

fraction of the beef cattle industry in Ohio before 1850. The 20,000

or so cattle driven from Madison County and the 15,000 or more

from the Scioto Valley in a typical year in the late 1840's do not

bulk so large when it is taken into consideration that the census

of 1850 showed 749,067 cattle in Ohio other than milch cows and

working oxen. In the dairy counties of the Western Reserve these

"other cattle" tended to be relatively more important than else-

where, and in the Miami Valley--where all cattle would compete

with swine for the available corn--relatively less so, but in general

they were distributed throughout the state more or less in correlation

with the farm population.1 Though these cattle were predomin-

antly, or even in some areas entirely, only the accumulation of local

calves born over a period of several years, the number coming to

market or slaughtered at home was fairly large, as is clear from

 

* This is the concluding part of Dr. Jones's article, the first having appeared in

the preceding issue, pages 168-194.

1 U. S. Census, 1850, 362-363. The census of 1850 was taken as of June 1. This

meant that, while in the sections of the state not specializing in grazing or feeding

cattle the count of animals one year old and upwards might be reasonably accurate,

the feeder cattle in the Scioto Valley would escape enumeration, and so would the

cattle in the grazing country driven off in the spring.

287