116 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



how to breed the very best class of animals on the farm and 

 how to feed them. 



This winter we had some steers in live lots, feeding in dif- 

 ferent yards. We knew they would not give equal profit. One 

 lot fed on corn and barley hay — men say that seventy-five per 

 cent of the steers fed in Nebraska are fed on corn and barley 

 hay — they made thirty-eight cents per head. We fed another 

 lot of steers on corn and alfalfa, and they made us nearly nine 

 dollars profit per head. Same conditions, same grade of cattle. 

 Just simply intelligent method of feeding. We try to teach the 

 boys these things. We believe that six months experience on 

 the farm each summer is better for them than twelve months 

 in school, because it gives them a chance to practice under farm 

 conditions the theories they have been taught in the school, and 

 if these theories will work they will find it out, and if not, they 

 will find it out, and I think that more than anything else forces 

 the school to teach practical things to the boys — methods which 

 will show the boys in dollars and cents when they go back to 

 the land. And these boys are enthusiastic over the things 

 they learn at the school, and every year there is an increase of 

 about twenty-five per cent over the numbers there was there 

 last year. This school is economical. We try to make the ex- 

 penses very small, and any boy can earn pretty near enough in 

 six months on a farm to pay his expenses during six months in 

 the school; and most any farmer who has a boy sixteen years 

 old can afford to send, him to the school for one or two or three 

 winters on account of the additional value he will be right on 

 that farm, paying back more than the cost of schooling within 

 the first three years. He will pay for three years schoohng in 

 three years in the additional money he will make that farm earn 

 on the average. You all know Mr. John Brenner at York. He 

 said that his boy paid him the first ninety days, saved him 

 more money than he had cost the father to pay his expenses 

 during the winter. Now, I don't care to say any more. We 

 would be glad to see all of you at the station. We are carrying 

 on experiments there all the time and occasionally publishing 

 reports. Three or four bulletins will be sent out in the next 

 three months. We would like to send these bulletins to every 

 farmer in the state of Nebraska. We send 22,000 of them now 



