SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 605- 



feeding more or less cattle for the last 30 years, and I never attempt to 

 feed out a bunch of them unless I have hogs following them. I consid- 

 er It a great loss to feed cattle and have no hogs following. 



I like best to feed in troughs placed in a pasture field in good weath- 

 er; when weather is bad I feed in my cattle barn. I do not feed nor 

 handle my stock scientifically, but use good judgment and common sense. 



MORE ABOUT BABY BEEF, 

 jonx MEHJiKEX, DES MOINES, i.\., in Breeders' Gazette. 



I have before me a letter from a young farmer of Lee county, Iowa. 

 He says he has over 300 acres of land, some creek bottom, some rough 

 pasture with a little timber on it and the rest is fairly flat upland. It 

 has been the custom of his father to buy feeding cattle in summer, run 

 them on blue grass, later through stalk fields, and then put them in the 

 feed lot, to be sent to market when corn was about fed out. 



He is not satisfied with the net returns of this plan and asks if it 

 ^^-ould be more profitable for him to feed calves, and whether he should 

 buy some or raise them, and what I consider a safe price to be paid for 

 a calf at weaning time and of the kind that makes baby beef. He feels 

 somewhat uneasy about overproduction of that article. 



It is always easier to give an advice than to follow the same, and I 

 vvill say that I have seen the advantages of feeding calves long since, but 

 it is now that I am feeding our first load of baby beeves. 



It will not do to undertake feeding calves unless one is prepared, and 

 to be prepared means to have plenty and good shelter, a big supply of 

 good roughness, preferably clover hay; oats and corn enough and to spare,- 

 also plenty of fresh water and a head, which is carried on one's own 

 shoulders, with a mind in it which has made sure before beginning that 

 calves shall not go to market until finished. This is all important, for 

 it takes a long time to feed a calf to ripeness and one may see many 

 changes in the market during that time, and it may be trying to one's 

 backbone at times to hold on, but we must not overlook the fact that if 

 light cattle are unpopular at times we can make them heavier with little 

 cost; whereas, if heavy cattle are discriminated against and get top-heavy, 

 they must be marketed or fed at a loss. If a man lives in a district 

 where beef calves are raised, and can buy them at w^eaning time, he 

 should take none but good ones; that is to say, a calf which is sired by 

 a registered bull of one of the beef breeds from as good a cow as possible, 

 and under no circumstances should he knowlingly take one which is 

 from a grade bull, even if the latter looks better at weaning time. The 

 calf from a grade may feed all right, but it is very uncertain. 



As to prices, it depends much on the calves, and we must remember 

 that good calves can not be produced at a trifle, but nobody should pay 

 an unreasonable price just because the other fellow is doing so. 



This young man from Lee county is fortunately located in so far as 

 he lives within driving distance of Fort Madison, la., where O. H. Nelson 

 has opened up a feeder market and no doubt will hold some public sales^ 

 this fall, where he wall sell feeding cattle and calves. 



