PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 529 



ADDRESS OF HON. L. V. CARTER 



I think the program schedules my subject as "By-Products of Cattle 

 Feeding," and I wrote the secretary of this association that that would 

 certainly give any man leeway enough to say anything he wanted to and 

 still keep within the bounds of his subject, whether it was appropriate 

 and worthy of our discussion or not. So I may digress a little from the 

 mere story of the feed lot and feeder part of the time, with your indul- 

 gence. 



There is very much that I had thought of saying, or that I had thought 

 might be said and covered by this subject, along the lines of experience 

 in feeding other things than corn — mill feeds. I think most of us per- 

 haps have had considerable experience with the mill feeds, but in recent 

 years, with money scarcer and clover and alfalfa more plentiful and corn 

 cheaper, we are sticking more to our own feeds. However, I have no 

 thought at present of discussing that subject, particularly along that line. 



I have jotted down a few of the things I wish to call your attention to, 

 for fear that some of them might slip my mind. I might say that I was 

 born and grew to manhood in a community where there were many cattle 

 feeders — men who fed from just a few head, a part of a load, to six or 

 eight or ten loads a year — a community in which there were many small 

 cattle feeders rather than a few large cattle feeders. And our community 

 has continued to be more of that nature. We have never had a man that 

 fed many hundred head in a year, as some of you do and some of your 

 neighbors do. Our feeders have mostly been men that have fed from 

 a load or two to perhaps a hundred head, and maybe once in a while a 

 man that feeds a couple of hundred head during the year. 



I feed cattle partially because I grew up in a feeding environment, I 

 suppose. My father, along with his neighbors, fed a few cattle practically 

 every year. Since I have been farming for myself I have fed cattle every 

 year. But if anyone is listening to this paper or talk with the thought 

 that I have found some sure way to success, they will certainly be dis- 

 appointed. If they expect some remarkable story to quick and sure re- 

 turns and no losses, they are in line for a real disappointment. 



I am one who has attempted to pay for his farm by feeding cattle and 

 hogs. With me live stock feeding is a business. My farm is my business 

 and not my playground. In the main, I am one who is convinced that it 

 pays better to feed our corn than it does to sell it; and I mean by that 

 that the average price per bushel through the steer and the hog is more 

 than the average price per bushel at the elevator, over a long period of 

 years. 



But this only leads me to my subject, "The By-Products of Cattle Feed- 

 ing." This is a day, you know, when many of the so-called big business 

 enterprises rely almost wholly on the sale of their by-products for their 

 net income, their net profits; and after all, with these concerns, the by- 

 product may become the major enterprise, and in cattle feeding it may be 

 something the same. However, I am not one who is advocating or who 

 is content to feed steers for the profit from the by-products. Unless live 

 stock feeding will pay more per bushel and per ton for the feed that they 

 consume, I am not content to feed, although I will confess that with the 



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