The Bulletin. 



Volume 27. North Carolina State Board of Agriculture. Number 6. 



Entered at the Raleigrh Post-office as second-class mail matter. 



The Bulletin is published monthly by the State Board of Agriculture. 



RALEIGH, MAY, 1906. 



THE FEEDING OF BEEF CATTLE. 



BY TAIT BUTLER. 



There are at least two excellent reasons for the feeding of beef cat- 

 tle on many North Carolina farms. First, there is wasted, or not 

 fully utilized, large quantities of rough forage, notably corn stover ; 

 and there are also large quantities of cotton seed and cotton-seed meal 

 now being used directly as fertilizers for which much better values 

 would be obtained by first feeding them and thereby obtaining their 

 feeding values, and also a large part of their original fertilizer values. 



The second reason is found in the extreme lack of humus, or decay- 

 ing organic matter, in our soils. No soils need stable manure more 

 than ours and few receive less of it. Many of our soils are deficient 

 in plant food, and most of the older soils are very deficient in humus, 

 and certainly there is no better way of supplying this humus than 

 through the application of stable manure. 



In brief, the chief present objects of beef cattle feeding on North 

 Carolina farms are to furnish a market for the products of the farm 

 now largely wasted and at the same time retain the fertilizer value 

 of these products for maintaining and building up soil fertility. The 

 lack of satisfactory pastures is almost universally given as the reason 

 for the absence of live-stock on our farms, but this cannot be given as 

 a reason for the failure to feed to beef cattle during the winter such 

 farm products as corn stover, cotton seed and cotton-seed meal, of 

 which we have large quantities not now fully utilized. 



The winter feeding of beef cattle is a subject concerning which 

 more farmers are now desiring information than at any other time. 

 In fact, probably more beef cattle were fed in North Carolina during 

 the past winter than at any other time during recent years. In the 

 past the feeding of beef cattle has not been uniformly or even usually 

 successful. In a large percentage of cases where the feeds were pur- 

 chased actual loss has resulted, while in others more money could 



