100 



The Bulletin. 



LIVE STOCK ON THE FARM. 



By a. L. French. 



In the handling of beef cattle either of two methods may be used, or the 

 two may be combined. First, cattle may be grown on the farm until twenty 

 to twenty-four months of age. when they are disposed o,f — in good growing 

 farm condition — to professional feeders. To make this line of work profitable, 

 good pastures are the first thing needed — not bush lots inclosed by a fence, 

 but good soil well set in native and wild nutritious grasses. I believe our 

 greatest failure in North Carolina in connection with the live-stock business 

 is our almost universal lack of good pastures. No method of feeding animals 

 is so economical as grazing, and no treatment of our soils is as beneficial to 

 them as the covering of them with grass and clovers ; these grazed off by ani- 

 mals and the droppings and urine left on the land, all the plant food and 

 vegetable matter being returned to the soil from which it came except the 

 small amount that is retained by the animals in the building of tissue. 



Aberdkex Angus Cattli;. 



After good pasture comes a liberal supply of winter food cheaply growu aud 

 harvested. Nearly all stock foods may bo produced in large amounts by the 

 use of machinery, and the greater part of the harvesting may be accomplished 

 by the same means. This being the case, as large a profit should not be ex- 

 pected by the man who does not make use of these labor-saving tools, in the 

 growing and harvesting of his stock-food crops, as may reasonably be expected 

 by the man who does make economical use of them. These foods taken in the 

 order of their imiiortance are corn silage, legume hays, corn fodder, sorghum 

 hays, and the different meadow hays. 



Selecting the cows that are to raise the calves is an important matter, and 

 I would lay especial stress on the fact that they must be cows that give a 

 good quantity of milk and are also of compact build. The man on the small 



