388 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



have had a greater dispersal of breeding herds in our state because of 

 the inability to secure men who are competent to feed and care for them 

 than from any other one cause, and to my notion, probably the most 

 serious thing that confronts the beef cattle industry in the west and 

 south is the inability to secure men of experience and training and skill 

 necessary for us to have in order that we may keep our production up to 

 normal. We are working on that problem; we are doing everything in 

 the world we can to encourage the men who are capable of staying in 

 that particular line of business, because of the fact that we feel that it 

 is absolutely essential. 



On the other hand, we also feel that it will be profitable thru a series 

 of years, for us to encourage men to handle all of the live stock that 

 we can handle in our state, because of the fact that it has always been 

 in the past the most profitable system of farming that we could develop, 

 altho we are changing gradually from the speculative handling of beef 

 cattle to the production basis, because of the fact that we have been 

 finding it more profitable to produce cattle than to do anything else with 

 them. 



I can not help but feel that this production of beef Will in the end 

 supplant the finishing of beef, or the speculation which has been the one 

 determining factor in the development of our agriculture in the United 

 States. As I said a few minutes ago, we are not expecting to reap 

 immediately all the profits we get in the handling of beef, but we are 

 going to develop a well-arranged, permanent, profitable system of agri- 

 culture because of the fact that we have been so closely and intimately 

 identified with the system. 



J. A. Gunn : Do you know of anyone who is using corn silage 

 made from the stalks of the corn, taking out the ears, for winter- 

 ing the beef cows? 



Professor Cochel : "We are doing it ourselves. We have just 

 finished building a silo yesterday, and have filled one silo wnth 

 chopped fodder. We husked the corn and put up the fodder in 

 the field just as if we were going to haul it out later and feed 

 it, but instead of doing that put it into the silo. 



Mr. Gunn :^ How do the cows like it ? 



Professor Cochel: They don't like it quite as well as silage 

 with corn in it, but we have wintered cattle on that sort of stuff, 

 giving them one pound of linseed or cottonseed meal per day per 

 head, and a little wheat straw in connection with it, all of which 

 are very cheap feeds, and have had them go thru the winter with- 

 out losing in weight. We took them off the pasture about the 

 middle of November, and carried them thru the winter on that 

 feed. It is a little bit expensive to husk corn and haul the fodder 

 to the silo. 



