Nn. n nEI'AHTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Of. 



COST INCREASES WITH ADVANCE IN AGE. 



As a rule, the amount of food required to make a pound of gain 

 in meat-making animals increases as the birth period is receded 

 from, and increase in weight decreases continuously. 



It is easily possible to make a cattle beast of beef inheritance 

 gain two pounds daily during the first year not including birth 

 weight, even though reared essentially on skim-milk and adjuncts 

 during the milk period. The same animal is not likely to increase 

 in weight the second year more rapidly than one and a half pounds 

 per day. or the third year more rapidly than one and a quarter 

 pounds per day, notwithstanding that more food was consumed the 

 second year than the first, and the third year than the second. 

 The explanation is found in the greater activity of the digestive 

 organs near the birth period, and to the increase in the cost of the 

 food of maintenance as the birth period is receded from. Young 

 swine furnish an exception to the rule regarding increase in weight 

 but not in regard to increase in the food required to make weight. 

 Young swine while nursing cannot be made to gain so rapidly as at a 

 later period. 



The economy of pushing our meat-making animals rapidly from 

 birth until ready for the block will be readily apparent. The import- 

 ance of so doing increases with relative increase in the cost of 

 food. It may be different where, at certain seasons of the year, cheap 

 and coarse foods are abundant on the farm, and it is desired to 

 utilize them to the utmost, or where pastures are partly or wholly 

 free as on the range. It may be that a steer grown on the range 

 will bring greatest profit sold at four years. It may be also that a 

 steer grown on farms in the Mississippi basin, where, oftentimes, 

 much fodder is wasted, will bring greatest profit at three years, 

 but in the Eastern and New England states, greater profits will cer- 

 tainly come from selling steers finished at an age not exceeding 

 two years, where food is relatively dear. 



CESSATION IN GROWTH. 



The truth must be self-evident, that if at anytime before devel 

 opinent is completed growth ceases in whole or in part, the cost of 

 the food of maintenance is proportionately increased. If cessation 

 in growth is complete, there is no return for the food of mainte- 

 nance during its continuance, unless it be under conditions where 

 animals are thus carried on until they can be maintained on cheaper 

 foods. For instance, it may pay a ranchman to carry an animal 

 through the Winter without gain in order to bring it to that season 

 when it will graze on pastures that cost but little or are entirely 

 free. But it will not pay the eastern farmer thus to carry a young 

 animal through the winter, since pastures on eastern farms are 

 valuable as well as coarse foods. 



The farmer who puts a young animal in winter-quarters at the 

 advent of winter, and who turns the same out to graze, say five 

 months hence, without any advance in weight, has virtually lost 

 the food fed during those five months. The only return he has is 

 a poor grade of fertilizer, the value of which will be largely offset 

 by the labor expended in caring for the animal and the cost of pro- 

 viding suitable shelter. In growing meat-making animals, therefore, 

 on eastern farms, the wisdom of keeping the animals growing all 



