author
Frank Webster Farley
1888–1967
Best known for practical, early 20th-century writing on beef cattle, this agricultural author helped turn research and field experience into clear advice for farmers and livestock raisers. His books and bulletins trace the history, breeding, feeding, and management of cattle in the United States.
1 Audiobook
History of the beef cattle industry in Illinois
by Frank Webster Farley
About the author
Frank Webster Farley was an American agricultural writer whose published work focused on beef cattle production and livestock management. Library and archival records identify him as Frank W. Farley, born in 1888 and died in 1967, and connect his name with practical farm manuals as well as historical writing on the cattle industry.
His work includes History of the Beef Cattle Industry in Illinois, originally submitted as a University of Illinois agriculture thesis in 1915, along with titles such as Dehorning and Castrating Cattle, Growing Beef on the Farm, Raising Beef Cattle on Farm and Range, Hereford Husbandry, and studies of Southern beef-cattle production. Taken together, these books show a writer interested both in day-to-day animal husbandry and in the larger development of American cattle farming.
Farley’s writing stands out for being direct and useful. Rather than aiming at literary flourish, he wrote to explain how cattle were bred, fed, handled, and improved, making his work a helpful window into the concerns of American agriculture in the first half of the twentieth century.