174 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



PROFITABLE CLASSES OF CATTLE FOR THE FARMER TO 



RAISE. 



(By Hugh G. VanPelt, Ames. Iowa.) 



Not a great many years ago it would have been an easy matter to 

 decide which classes of cattle could be raised on a farm with profit. Land, 

 labor and feed could then be commanded at a low figure. The land in 

 those days could be farmed at a profit with no stock at all. save horses to 

 do the work. Since that time conditions have been changing until at the 

 present time we find good farms ranging in value from $40.00 to $100.00 

 per acre. Where such conditions exist great care must be taken to restore 

 the fertility which is taken from the farm in enormous amounts with each 

 crop. The welfare and prosperity of every agricultural state is, in a 

 fundamental sense, determined by the productiveness of her soil. If 

 the hay and grain are removed from the farm in their raw state the 

 farmer finds that it is only the course of a few years until the yielding 

 value of his farm is lessened in a great degree. To resort to commercial 

 fertilizers is a great expense added to the already costly operation in 

 raising grain. Some grain farmers have resorted to the rotation of crops 

 as a means of retaining the yielding value of their land, but, nevertheless, 

 where a crop is taken away each year with nothing returned, it is only a 

 course of time until the farm crops begin to return smaller yields. 



The question finally answers itself. That the only way to retain fer- 

 tility of the farm, is to feed the crop to stock and return the greater part 

 of the plant food to the land in the form of manure. But to do this the 

 farmer must determine how it can be profitably done and this leads to the 

 subject, "Profitable classes of cattle for the farmer to raise." There are 

 three classes of cattle which must be considered under this subject. 



• In dairyirig districts, where properly handled, the dairy cow is a very 

 profitable investment ; the farmer sending the cream or butter to market, 

 keeping the skim milk and buttermilk at home to feed to the calves and 

 hogs. Then there is the dual purpose-cow, of which we have seen so 

 miuch in the columns of our leading stock papers lately, and many farmers 

 there are in the states of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, who 

 have resorted to this class of cattle with the feasible excuse that land is so 

 valuable that they cannot aflford to keep a cow a year to raise a calf ; and 

 many professors of the agricultural colleges in those states advocate that 

 this is truly the profitable class of cattle for the farmer to raise. But 

 both dairy and dual purpose cattle are at the great disadvantage of caus- 



