No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 253 



business who, instead of having two calves to one cow, have two 

 cows for one calf. That is not profitable beef production. That 

 is feeding to win. That is feeding for the show and it is necessary 

 to do it that way if you are going to win, but those animals, indi- 

 vidual animals, are not been fed at a profit. They are fed to win. 



Begin to feed your calves as soon as possible. Within fourteen 

 days after they are born you can give them a little grain. Now 

 every day a calf lives in which it does not make a gain it is so much 

 loss. As Mr. Kerrick, of Illinois, would say, you grow beef; don't 

 fatten beef, but grow beef. Start with him as soon as born and 

 make him into a beef animal. Make every day count. With the 

 beef animal brought up until 1,500 pounds, the first 500 pounds of 

 that animal is the cheapest, the second 500 pounds the next cheap- 

 est in production and the third 500 pounds you need to be careful 

 if you do it at a profit; so then make your animal early. The 

 animal is practically made the first twelve months of its age. Be- 

 gin right there and push, push him along. Never let him rest from 

 his labors. Calves over fourteen days old we begin to feed shelled 

 corn. Sprinkle a little corn in a low trough and step out of the 

 pen and you will be astonished to see how soon they learn to eat 

 that corn. Almost immediately one calf goes up and makes a be- 

 ginning and the others follow. Just a little the first feed, feed him 

 scantily. 



After a little while we add a few oats. I don't know that you 

 can grow corn and oats on your farms to success. I am not going 

 to lay down hard and fast lines that you have to follow because I 

 have long ago learned that when you undertake to apply fixed rules 

 to any line of agriculture you are up against something and you 

 don't know what is going to happen. You say a thing cannot be 

 done and about ten minutes afterwards a fellow gets up and says 

 he did it. I am not going to say you cannot feed this or that be- 

 cause I am likely to find the man who says he did it. I am simply 

 giving you our experience in doing these things. If you find that 

 you cannot get these kinds of feeds, your experience along dairy 

 lines teaches you that you can use other kinds of feeds for the feed- 

 ing of dairy cattle is not different from the feeding of beef cattle. 

 You will have to exercise your own judgment as to whether or not 

 they are balanced. You will have to figure those things out with 

 what you can produce upon your own farms and so we cannot lay 

 down hard and fast rules. I believe the farmer, as a rule, who 

 makes the most profit is the man who feeds the produce of his own 

 farm, or exchanges that produce for some of equal or more value, 

 but every exchange or move you make adds to the expense. In all 

 your work with beef cattle, remember that simplicity should be the 

 rule. Whenever you begin to dabble in complicated methods, com- 

 })licated feeds, you are getting an expensive thing on your hands. 

 The method I am going to advocate is simple and perhaps unfashion- 

 able on the part of many men, but it has been satisfactory and 

 profitable with us. 



I like to keep the calves away from the flies if I can. Flies have 

 become a serious problem with beef feeders just as with dairying. 

 The experiment station men will do a great thing for this country 

 when they show how to get rid of the flies. They will add dollars 

 tf) tJb.e hpfii and dairy interests of this country when they solve that 



