586 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



hogs in the fall to Chicago, sold them on the marget for $7.15. I realized. 

 $2,440 for the two car-loads of hogs, and had 135 hogs left. You men can 

 figure whether there was a profit in that bunch of hogs or not. 



There is lots of difference in the way cattle are handled, but what we 

 want the steer for is the money, the dollar there is in it. If we cannot, 

 make a dollar we don't need him on our farm. Years ago I used to buy my 

 calves and raise them; I would have ten or twenty cows with from two to 

 three calves to the cow. I quit that and went to buying my feed and feed- 

 ing them. I feed in the winter, summer and spring, but winter feeding, 

 I claim, costs too much. Why? Because we farmers have not got the 

 city heat; it costs too much to keep the animal heat in the steer; it is 

 too expensive. Still, I have a very nice place to feed; my cattle can go- 

 in on the floor and eat their feed in the dry. I have a large fountain 

 fed by a spring with cement tank, and they can come up and drink any 

 time. They say if you water your stock at three o'clock in the afternoon 

 cnce a day is enough. If a man's stock can drink whenever they want it, 

 that is the way it should be. I have seen my cattle go to the drinking 

 place by sun-up in the morning; you will see a few steers straggling 

 down for water; they want a drink; they will not drink too much at a 

 time. But you let them go, and water them at three o'clock, and if they 

 don't drink till then they will drink too much, and thej^ overgorge, and. 

 it is a great detriment to your cattle. 



I tried to buy a man's steers in my neighborhood. I offered him three 

 cents a pound for his cattle. He said, if you can make money out of 

 these cattle, I can. That was in the fall of the year; his cattle were 

 full of sap; they \^'ere heavy. The gentleman fed those cattle until the 

 next spring, and I have his word for it; I asked him what was the gain 

 on his steers, and he said thirty-five pounds to the head. Is that handling 

 stock and making money out of it? That man ought to sell his farm and 

 quit business. Now, there are lots of cattle fed that way. I feed through 

 the winter, and my average runs different, different years; some winters 

 are harder than others; it runs forty.fifty, sixty, and even seventy pounds 

 to the head of gain. I have fed in the spring time on grass, and get 

 as high as seventy-five and 100 pounds gain on the grass, that is, with 

 grass, ground corn and cob and oats mixed. I have fed snapped corn, 

 but I think the best way to feed corn is to soak it, yet I never was 

 especially satisfied that way; it is too much labor to grind the corn; 

 there is no profit left for me; too much labor to grind the corn. It 

 will pay you to grind corn for your cattle if you have no hogs, but if 

 you have hogs plenty, it don't pay any man to grind corn for his cattle. 

 The best gain I ever got on cattle was on grass, rock salt and water. 1 

 bought one bunch of cattle the 15th of May, and they averaged 900' 

 pounds; I paid three dollars a hundred for those cattle; I sold them on 

 the 15th day of September, weighed them up, and they averaged 1,300 

 pounds. There was 400 pounds gain in four months to a day. Now. that 

 was on grass, no corn. They had not had a bite of corn. There was some 

 profit in handling cattle. One great fault with we farmers is, there is a 

 little too much hog about us. We overdo our pastures; we pasture our 



