528 



Mhsouri A(/riculf)nri] Report. 



W. A. Cochel. 



PRODUCTION OF FEEDING CATTLE. 



(Professor W. A. Cochel, Kansas State Agricultural College.) 



It is with a good bit of pleasure that I come back to the Uni- 

 versity of Missouri for the first time when 

 college is in session to talk before the men 

 in my own home community, where I am 

 known possibly as well as I am any place 

 else in the whole country, on a question 

 that I believe is of vital importance not 

 only to Missouri feeders but all cattle feed- 

 ers of Kansas, Iowa and Illinois and all the 

 ^^^ neighboring states. In this country, as in 



^^ ^2^!1 other countries, we find the foundation of 



^^^k ^pHft ♦ all beef cattle is grass. Whenever we find 



JUmm^^^f ^ a country that has broken up the pastures 



and has gone out of the production of grass 

 and pasture crops into the exclusive pro- 

 duction of grain crops, we find beef cattle eliminated. At the same 

 time the farm land invariably produced less per acre than it did 

 when used for the production of beef. 



If we study the production of cattle and the cattle business 

 in, this country, we find that the first cattle brought to America 

 were brought to the Atlantic seaboard, where they grazed on the 

 rich pastures in the lowlands of that country, and exported at any- 

 where from three to four or five years of age. That is, they were 

 brought here to simply graze and turn into a marketable form the 

 crops which were produced. As states developed and land became 

 more valuable, the production of cattle was eliminated. That is, 

 the farmers of the eastern section of the country went into diversi- 

 fied farming, market gardening, into dairying, fruit growing and 

 in other things than the production of beef. At the same time 

 beef cattle were driven over the Alleghenies into Ohio, Illinois and 

 Indiana and grown on the pastures that were just as rich, pastures 

 that would produce just as many pounds per acre as the farms in 

 the east, and driven to the seaboard when ready for export. Later, 

 when railroads were built into that country, the beef breeding 

 herds were driven into Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. The western 

 ranges opened up as transportation facilities provided a market 

 for corn and wheat and other products of the farm, resulting in 



