580 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



benefit these men in any way, more so, because they are not mere traders, 

 who lose all interest in the cattle as soon as sold and paid for, and we 

 should work in harmony. 



Panhandle men have gone as far as present conditions seems to justify 

 in bringing their calves to the Corn-belt, but to meet success in full it 

 seems to me they stop just a little short and as they get better establish- 

 ed, they will fina it to their advantage to bring them to the feed-lot. Men 

 who raise good beef calves in the Corn-belt are generally proud of them 

 and it is their natural desire to even up in number to make a carload of 

 beeves, and if they can buy just the kind and number wanted at their 

 home station they will not begrudge a dollar or so per head, but this same 

 dollar may mean the profit or loss in the transaction to the rangeman. 



Comparatively few men are situated to feed a carload of calves, or say 

 50 to 55 head, but many would be glad to have 25. Yet they feel that on 

 business principles they cannot go far for that number and pay full car 

 rate to get them home, besides traveling expenses. I have been convinced 

 of these facts ever since I attended one of Mr. Sotham's sales in the fall 

 of 1902 and today I am more certain than ever that bringing the calves to 

 the feed-lot will be the shortest road to success. I have seen many obsta- 

 cles in the way also, but they are disappearing fast. 



Calves can be raised wholesale fashion on the range, but baby beef is 

 not the product of the big feed-lot, as calves seem to thrive best in small 

 number (another factor to be reckoned with.) Advice has been given for 

 two neighbors to buy and ship a load of calves together and this plan has 

 been tried and found wanting when it came to divide up, and after all 

 there is the extra haul for the railroad to be paid by buyer or seller direct- 

 ly or indirectly, which can be avoided if calves are sent to different locali- 

 ties instead of to central places in the Corn-belt. It is not surprising 

 that the big early calves are taken more readily at auction than smaller 

 ones because feeders reason thus: the small calf is either out of a young 

 heifer or it should have had its mother's milk another month or so, and 

 the chances are in both cases that he always win be undersized. It is 

 not only because packers discriminate against heifers to a varied extent 

 that we must buy them lower than steers of the same quality and weight, 

 for if we shelter them together with hogs in winter they are often injured 

 by the latter tearing their sexual organs which always gives more or less 

 trouble and if we keep hogs out the droppings will go to waste. The 

 worst draw-back, however, comes in early spring when heifers come in 

 heat and it takes close watching to sort out such as are thus affected, 

 and gains at these periods are small if any. The best way is to breed 

 them two months or so before marketing, but the bull should be kept in 

 the pen and the heifer brought to him, and kept by herself after service 

 fof a while. This is better than spaying if the heifers are fed as year- 

 lings. 



A year ago last fall one of my friends went to the Panhandle on my 

 advice to buy a load of calves; he brought home 60 heads of heifer calves 

 which he put on a grain ration at once. They made excellent gains all 



