SECRETARY'S REPORT. 73 



parison of dairy products with beef, and allowing the same deduc- 

 tions for the additional labor of the dairy, we find that for each 

 hundred pounds of veal bringing five dollars, we would have Sig 

 lbs. of butter bringing six dollars, or 93| lbs. of cheese bringing 

 seven dollars and a half. If these calculations are near accuracy, 

 it would appear that veal calves pay a better return for the food 

 consumed than animals kept to greater age, yet not so much as 

 dair}' products. 



It is difficult to make a satisfactory comparison between the 

 returns yielded by dairy products and those from the sale of cattle 

 of one and a half to two and a half years of age. The estimates of 

 farmers, as to the cost of rearing to these ages, vary exceedingly. 

 I suppose much of the difference depends on the way they set 

 about the reckoning. Let one estimate the food and attention 

 given them at what they bring when sold in this form, and it would 

 appear that the cost of rearing is rather trifling; by the same light, 

 however, farming appears to be an unprofitable and undesirable 

 business ; plenty of hard work and small pay. Let another charge 

 the milk which the calf takes at 1| or 2 cents per quart, the hay at 

 $10 a ton, the roots or grain, and the pasturage and attention at 

 what they can be made to pay by putting them to another use, and 

 the cost runs up to a sum almost frightful in view of the probable 

 market price, especially if the hay crop proves a light one and all 

 improvident or miscalculating farmers are obliged to reduce their 

 stock. 



Last year I sent out a circular of inquiries, asking among other 

 questions, the cost of rearing stock, and the usual selling prices, 

 and I found the estimates of cost to rear an animal up to two or 

 two and a half years old, ranged from fifteen to thirty-five dollars, 

 and the prices realized to be from twelve to twenty-five dollars, 

 and in rare instances somewhat more than the latter sura ; the 

 average seeming to be about eighteen dollars. I fancied there 

 were indications of an unwillingness to acknowledge that they 

 were rearing young animals with a pretty certain prospect of sell- 

 ing them at a loss. Now if there be no better way of disposing of 

 our herbage and crops than to grow young stock to sell at twelve 

 to twenty dollars per head, then on the principle that an article is 

 worth just what it will bring in the market, this must be reckoned 

 as the full value of the food and attention bestowed ; hut if it should 

 appear (hat there is a more profitable mode of disposing of herbage, 



