Show hides and skins become valuable farm product hides and skins are among th the e highest price per pound raw materials that agriculture produces the tanner often pays as much or more per pound for the best flayed clayed and cured hides and skins skin S of cattle and calves than the butcher pays for the dressed carcasses of these animals yet because they are byproducts of another industry and frequently are re marketed by undiscriminating methods hides and skins are all too often treated with but little regard for what should be done to realize their maximum value it is generally considered that for cattle an average of about 7 per cent of the live weight and about 11 per cent of the value of the live animal is in the hide in the case of calves the skin may equal as much as 20 per cent of the value on the hoof the importance of hides and skins is shown by the fact that about are tanned annually worth around the leather produced has a normal factory valuation of around it is converted into shoes belting harness and other goods for which consumers spend yearly close to domestic production is about hides and skins annually worth well over oo 0 it is necessary to draw upon foreign countries for the balance |