FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 337 



cago ill 19(Jo averaged $4.90, or $(i6.15 per head; the average price for all 

 cattle, excluding calves, was for 1903, $43.50 per head; for all of the 

 same in 1902 was $54 per head; with a half million more cattle in 1903 

 than in 1902, still the total value was less by $30,750,577. A load of Ne- 

 braska yearling Hereford steers sold yesterday in the Chicago market, 

 weighing ten hundred and fifty pounds, for $5.75, five cents higher 

 than any other lot on the market. These yearlings averaged $60.37 per 

 head. Had they been brought to that weight in twelve months their cost 

 would not have exceeded $26 for grain, forage and grass, leaving a mar- 

 gin of $34.37 for the milk consumed and the profit. The estimated value 

 of grain consumed, if produced on the farm, will return a profit to the 

 farmer as values are based on corn at forty cents per bushel. 



It seems to me that the farmer should grow his bunch of calves for 

 beef, as he does his pigs, around an average of twelve months, to the 

 finish for market. Certainly, the greater profit lies in the direction of 

 ra])id growth and quickly to market. 



R. /Sf. Johnston, Coltimhus Junction. Iowa. 



This subject is becoming more prominent each year among the cat- 

 tle interests of the United States. Anyone who reads the market reports 

 of our great beef centers will note that young fatted cattle, or baby beef, 

 always command a good price. There is at least two prominent reasons 

 for a careful study of the early maturing idea of beef cattle. 



First. All through what is known as the corn belt land has ad- 

 vanced from fifty to one hundred per cent in the last few years, so that 

 the old method of keeping a cow and raising a calf each year and allow- 

 ing them to run until three to five years old before being fattened for beef 

 will not pay, therefore other means must be adopted to make this beef 

 in a short,er period and get much quicker returns from the investment. 



Second. It has been the custom of a great many of the smaller feed- 

 ers, as well as the larger ones, to go to the range for their feeding cattle. 

 This will no doubt continue for some time to come; yet the range does 

 not support the cattle it did years ago for several reasons, among them 

 being a large farming immigration into the valley land all over the 

 West, where they make pleasant and profitable homes through Irriga- 

 tion. Again, the sheep owner has taken up a great deal of the original 

 cattle range. 



As the result of these conclusions, the time is coming when we will 

 have too look more carefully to the production as well as maturing our 

 own beef. We are Convinced it will take very carefuul study, planning 

 and feeding to make a profit in the way of beef only from a cow kept 

 for the calf alone on our present one hundred dollars per acre Iowa land. 



But this can be done. We should aim to get as many good high grade 

 cows of either of the prominent breeds as ^ur land would carry, and by 

 all means procure a thoroughbred bull, one with good quarters and good 

 through the heart, or what we term a "beefy looking fellow." Should 

 arrange so that the calves would be dropped in the fall or early spring, 

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