No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 255 



I am going to give you a simple method by which you can feed 

 cattle that will at least give you profitable results and I know it 

 is a success, one of the simplest methods and in fact so old fashioned 

 that I hardly dare name it; that is, the old fashioned method of 

 feeding shocked corn and clover hay. Feed it in the open racks, 

 open sheds, in the simplest manner. If you can get your corn well 

 cut and well put up, and your land is such that you dare go out 

 on it in the winter months with the wagon and get the feed, it is 

 the simplest, and I believe, one of the most profitable methods that 

 can be used. Let me show you the difference between that and the 

 other method. Suppose you determine to feed in a complicated 

 method and use silage and ground feed in connection with that. 

 It first involves the silo; it next involves a good warm barn; it 

 next involves the husking, shelling and grinding of the corn which 

 you don't put in the silage, for the finishing period. It involves 

 feeding in the inside which is always more laborious than feeding 

 in the open racks. It takes more time and you have added almost 

 one-third to the cost of the feed by the time you get it into the 

 cattle, but you have not added a third to its feeding value. You 

 have added slightly but not one-third. If you have a silo conve- 

 nient or can get it at a reasonable price, if you have the power and 

 the grinding equipments and shelling equipments, well and good, 

 but this thing can be done with the simpler method and with as 

 great profit to the farmer as he will find the other way. Several 

 times we have topi)ed both the Pittsburg and Chicago markets with 

 carload lots of cattle, handled as I have told in the simple ordinary 

 old fashioned way, therefore, I know it can be successfully and 

 profitably done. The cost of the more complicated way forced many 

 men out of the business. I said to you that the cattle-growing busi- 

 ness was drifting back East. I want to give you one of the reasons 

 for that — because of the great expense of growing beef in the West 

 to what it once was. In much of Texas the method has been to 

 feed cottonseed meal. Texas is the greatest cattle-producing state 

 in the Union, and has more cattle interests than half the other states 

 put together. In 1880 the cost of feeding a steer, finishing on cot- 

 tonseed meal, was $6.00 to |7.00 per head. In 1890 it had risen 

 to $11.25 per head; in 1900 to $17.50 per head, and in 1910 the cost 

 of feeding cottonseed meal in Texas will be from $25.00 to $27.00 

 per hundred. Now you can see that Texas is getting itself in the 

 position where you can begin to compete. When they were finish- 

 ing steers at from $6.00 to $7.00 per head on cottonseed meal and it 

 was costing you $20.00 to $30.00 on corn, you can see that you 

 could not do it. But now they have gotten to the point where 

 cottonseed meal is costing from $25.00 to $27.00 per head to make 

 their steers and you can meet with that competition; and this is 

 true through nearly all the West. The advanced cost of producing 

 their beef has become so great that the drift is again eastward, and 

 profitable beef production can be undertaken in the East. 



The question comes up as to how far to carry the steer, whether 

 to make baby beef of him or sell at the later age, and let me give 

 you some figures again. For a period of five years the average 1,500 

 pound steer in Chicago was bringing $6.03 per hundred; the average 

 900 pound steer was bringing $4.40, a difference of $1.63; and the 

 total gain there per hundred as between the 900 pound and 1,500 



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