363 FARMERS' INSTITUTES 



Mr. Sherman: What does it cost to raise a three-year-old colt? 



Mr. Otto: The first year I feed one quart of fine middlings mixed with 

 cut hay night and morning during the winter. I cut the hay into a box, wet 

 it down, pour on the tine middlings, stir and carry in baskets to the 

 trough from which the colts eat. I never steam food. I only feed grain four 

 or five months in the first winter. I keep a large growth of June grass past- 

 ure and keep them on that during severe weather till Christmas, taking 

 thom in on stormy nights. At four months old they will sell for the price 

 of a three-year-old steer. 



Mr. Banks: At Mr. Otto's figures a three-year-old colt would cost as fol- 

 lows : — 



First cost of colt to buy for raising 160.00 



150 days' grain, one quart night and morning 4.50 



€ tons of hay at $10.00 60.00 



Pasture at 25 cents per week 22.00 



Cost at three years old, not counting care $146.50 



Mr. Green: Another consideration in comparing cost of raising cattle or 

 horses is the difference in the insurance of the animals. A good Short 

 Horn sire can be got for $150, while a good Percheron sire will cose $1,000. 

 (Mr. Otto: I paid §1,900 for mine.) The matter of capital involved counts 

 for a good deal in favor of cattle raising. 



LIVE STOCK. 



BY M. W. SCOTT. 



[Read at Fremont Institute, February 4th, '87.] 



The most reliable historical authority says that during the first half 

 of the last century beef cattle did not arrive at maturity until the age 

 of six or seven years, and the average dressed weight dil not exceed 370 

 pounds; and that the average dressed weight of sheep was not above twenty- 

 eight pounds. Recent reports and statistics in the Department of Agricult- 

 ure place the average time at which beeves are now killed at three years 

 and the average dressed weight at upwards of 800 pounds, a saving of one 

 hundred per cent in time and upwards of one hundred per cent in weight; and 

 the average dressed weight of sheep upwards of eighty pounds, almost treble 

 the weight in the last century. The censuses of 1850 and 1880 show the aver- 

 age wool-clip per head has nearly doubled in thirty years. 



Now, by making a comparison between the unimproved "Long Horned" 

 •cattle of the Southern States and the modern, improved " Short Horns" of 

 the North, we can again see something of the results of improvement. In 

 1882 there were shipped from Key West, in Florida, 27,271 cattle valued at 

 $410,758, and from New York there were exported 33,412 head, worth. 

 $3,332, Ou4, the native, unimproved cattle averaging $15.05, the others nearly 

 seven times as much, or $99.72 per head. This means practical utility — 

 dollars and cents. 



