No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 351 



sometimes not as much, but they are fleshy. The same thing is true 

 in animals. They run to flesh, and they do it on less feed than 

 some of the others. While I admit that you might be able to put 

 this flesh on the dairy cow, I contend that you can do so on the beef 

 steer with less feed. If you are going to start in with the calf, I 

 should like that calf to come in the fall of the year — in October or 

 November. There are two or three reasons for this. True, you will 

 have his dam to keep during the winter, but I am going to suppose 

 that he is going to nurse his own dam. If he cannot do this, and 

 you have milch cows, take them, and give him the warm milk, and 

 you may raise him in that way; or, if he cannot nurse the cow, simply 

 give him milk that has been warmed, and you may raise him that 

 way, but in my judgment you cannot raise him as well as if he nurses 

 his dam, or some other good milch cow. So far as I know, there is 

 only one thing that is better for the calf than milk, and that is more 

 milk. I have never given the calf after he comes and learns how to 

 handle it himself, any help in feeding. I like to have him go in the 

 barn at the start; it gets him used to it — and you Pennsylvania peo- 

 ple have good barns — and you can be with him every day, and he 

 becomes accustomed to you, and becomes gentle. He becomes ac- 

 customed to watch you, and you can see what he is doing. After 

 he gets so that he can eat, I like to give him a little shredded corn 

 on a shelf where he can easily reach it. If there are three or four 

 of these little fellows together, all the better. I give them just a 

 table spoonfull or two, for the three of them, and then let them 

 nurse twice a day. You will find that the cows are much easier to 

 milk afterwards, and will give you more milk, if you keep her in the 

 barn, and let the little fellows go in there morning and evening and 

 nurse. If you let her go out in the pasture with him, she will run, 

 and half her milk will be Avasted, and she will not do so well after- 

 wards. 



Then I would like these little calves kept in a nice, roomy, light 

 pen, not back in the dark. Then he should take water often, and go 

 out every day. It cannot hurt beef cattle to get out into the air. In 

 fact, the finest cattle we have, the International Prize Cattle, spend 

 most of their time outside in the air. I believe that one of the trou- 

 bles of tuberculosis cattle is due to the fact that we do not allow 

 them out in the air enough. This pen should be light and airy. 

 Then let these little fellows get on as quickly as they can. It should 

 be thoroughly understood that the first five hundred pounds is the 

 cheapest you put on him, and the second five hundred is the second 

 cheapest, while the last five hundred pounds is the highest priced of 

 all. Now, when he comes in the fall, he really does not cost much' 

 besides his milk; perhaps it costs a little more to feed his mother, 

 but your calf gets very little high priced feed. Then when spring 

 comes, you find him ready to go out to pasture, and feed himself on 

 grass. The second six months are the second cheapest, because he 

 will be ready to feed himself in pasture. If he comes in the spring, 

 the first six months he feeds on milk, and the second six months he 

 feeds in the barn on the highest priced feed you can give him — the 

 protein. So I would say that the first thousand pounds, which he 

 will weigh in possibly twelve months, probably fourteen or fifteen, 

 are the cheapest if he is born in the fall. In my judgment, the calf 

 that comes in the fall is the cheapest calf. 



