SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 615 



To economically market beef it must be produced in car load lots. 

 Now, how very few farms will yearly produce a car load of such calves. 

 And here lies the great difficulty. From the very nature of the business 

 to be successful the feeder should have baby beef under his own manage- 

 ment from the very early days of calfhood until it is thoroughly finished. 

 So we may conclude that, notwithstanding the knowledge that a given 

 amount of feed will produce a greater gain in the young animal, so much 

 care, thought, and technical knowledge is required and such feeding is 

 surrounded by so many precise conditions that its production will be 

 left to a few feeders whose location, circumstances, and equipment make 

 finished baby beef successfully possible. 



The great army of farmer feeders will still continue to fit the mature 

 steer for market at from two and one-half to three years old, and the 

 great bulk of the demand will continue to be for large steers of quality, 

 weighing, when finished at this age, from 1,300 to 1,500 pounds. When 

 we consider the farmer's conditions, this is the steer that pays him best. 

 As a calf it is raised on skimmed milk (the butter fat having been sold 

 to the creamery) and a little grain ration. The second year's growth is 

 made on grass and the roughage of the farm, such as cornstalks, straw, 

 etc., that ^^•ithout stock cattle would go largely to waste. Therefore 1 

 believe we should think this matter over very carefully and avoid the ex- 

 tremes of the baby beef proposition. My conclusions are based at my 

 own experience. For more than thirty years I have fed steers for the 

 market. I have always bought yearlings of the best quality I could find, 

 let them grew on grass and the roughage of the farm until two to 

 two and one-half years old, then put them in the feed lot with hogs ttj 

 follow, fed them a grain ration — mainly corn — from three to six months, 

 and as a whole this feeding proposition has been a paying one and my 

 large steers of good quality brought the best returns. 



I believe the essentials of the Short-horn sires are, in a general 

 way, perfect health, a good strong back, well sprung ribs large heart girth 

 broad chest, broad head, and prominent eyes, which denote prepotency. He 

 should weigh upward of a ton at maturity in good breeding condition, 

 should stand well on strong legs, and be such that will look over the fence, 

 and with all have a good Short-horn pedigree that traces in all lines to an- 

 cestry remarkable for those qualities, that have been bred and reared by 

 men of undoubted intelligence in the mating and raising of Short-horn 

 cattle. Such a sire, when properly handled, will undoubtedly improve 

 the herd on the right lines. 



The breeding cows of the herd should be strong, healthy, breedy cows, 

 find for the best interest of both breeder and the breed, more attention 

 should be paid to the milking strains of the dams. The heifers and the 

 deep milking matrons of the herd should be seclected and they should be 

 trained by the most improved methods for developing dairy cows — such 

 as taking their first calves away from them at from three to six days 

 old. milking the young cows by hand and feeding them the most approved 

 dairy rations. The udder of the cow will not properly develop when she 



