228 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



least weight. I have noticed the highest market quotations 

 for steers carrying no more than from twelve hundred pounds 

 to thirteen hundred pounds of live weight outselling others of 

 from sixteen hundred pounds to eighteen hundred pounds. 

 Again : steers can be put on the market at its highest rates on 

 two winterings and September sale, but four years represents 

 nearer the average of New-England heavy beef. If fatted at 

 two years, instead of four, two winterings and keep for two 

 summers are saved. As the average weight of such a steer 

 for the whole period of life would be, in round numbers, eight 

 hundred pounds, if sold at a weight of fifteen hundred pounds, 

 the saving would amount to two tons and forty-five hun- 

 dredths of hay, and two summerings, of a total value of from 

 forty-five dollars to forty-seven dollars, hay being rated at fif- 

 teen dollars per ton. This is on the basis of facts taken by me, 

 which show that food of support for an eight-hundred-pound 

 steer is, in round numbers, fourteen pounds daily. If sold at 

 two years, this food of support is saved from this time to four 

 years of age, as all growth is made on food given above this 

 amount. To the above facts bearing on this subject, a mass 

 of facts could be added from personal weighings and from 

 weighings of others ; but it will suffice to fix the importance 

 of attention to this matter. Whether the German table is 

 right, or not, as to the relative amounts and kinds of 

 nutrients needed at varying periods of animal development, 

 it is certain that an animal when young needs more of the 

 albuminoids than at the mature period, that a young ani- 

 mal needs more food than at a later age, and that a pound 

 of food is of more value to the young animal than to one of 

 mature age. 



GERMAN TABLES. 



The value to the world of German investigations of foods 

 and feeding-problems is in no danger of being overvalued. 

 Their conclusions have been embodied in tables and proposi- 

 tions. These are widely circulated, and very readily accepted. 

 I recall an instance in German work where steers were fed 

 in stalls of unlike temperature, and the rations fed ; and their 

 results were considered to be modified by tins fact, and the 

 conclusion drawn, that steers in the warmer stalls appropri- 



