578 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



However, facts are facts, though figures can lie, and we must take notice 

 of them, so when we find for the twenty years from 1900 to 1920 that the 

 average weight of cattle slaughtered fell from 1,069 to 925 pounds, or a 

 reduction of 144 pounds, and that the dressing weight decreased over 1 

 per cent; during the same period beef consumption per capita dropped 

 from 107 to 57 pounds, or 50 pounds, with the fact that the consumption 

 of all meats decreased 28 pounds, and in the fact of a decreased produc- 

 tion of all meats during the same period from 248 pounds to 196 pounds, 

 or 52 pounds, it must mean something. Either our people desire a less 

 amount of meat and are manifesting it by buying smaller and cheaper 

 cuts, choosing to get their fats some other way, or that the traffic has 

 been gradually loaded up with so much profit between the producer and 

 the consumer that the consumer tries to get out from under by buying the 

 smaller and leaner cuts. 



Whether these calculations are correct or not, it seems to me that the 

 corn belt farmers might profit by feeding more light cattle. By using 

 such cattle we can consume more of the roughness during the winter 

 months and more of our pasture during the summer months, thereby 

 keeping our farms in a better state of cultivation. 



Of course, our aim in feeding these cattle, 600 to 800 pounds, is to 

 keep them going from the time they come on the farm until they leave it. 

 We try to keep the motto before us that unless we can do more for the 

 cattle than the other fellow, we had better leave them alone. They usu- 

 ally buy these cattle in the fall of the year, early September if possible. 

 They can usually be bought cheaper than heavier cattle. They are 

 brought home given a month or so, or as long as the pastures are good, 

 all the pasture they need. They may clean the best out of the corn fields, 

 then they are placed on silage and clover hay, given all the clover hay 

 they will eat and not over twenty pounds of silage for the first two 

 months. Then the silage is gradually increased until at grass time they 

 are getting all the silage they will eat — also about ten pounds of com. 

 We do not let up feeding silage as long as they will clean it up, but after 

 they are on grass and a full feed of corn, then you can let up on silage. 

 In doing this we can get rid of that between hay and grass period when 

 cattle used to stand still for nearly a month. 



Fly time has never found our cattle unprepared, and when we get hold 

 of a fairly good quality of cattle, we have them in Chicago before August 

 1, weighing around 1,200 pounds, not a big gain, but these cattle have left 

 the farm considerably better than they found it. Beside helping to feed 

 a few hogs, they have put quite a lot of cheap feed into good beef and 

 helped keep up our rotattion of crops, which is very essential if we ever 

 expect to keep up the price of our land, for which many of us have paid 

 our good money. 



In the feeding of baby beeves we have still another problem, though 

 much like the heavy cattle in the use of concentrates. They, however, 

 make considerably better use of them. These baby beeves can be made to 

 use quite a lot of silage in their ration for a while. My experience with 

 baby beeves is with those I have raised. We take the cows and calves into 

 the lot and barn, where we have the silage, and feed them practically all 



