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. [Illustration: _The Summer That the Rain Came Not_] In the nineties (1896), 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.