CATTLE-FEEDING IN NEW YOEK 



By Pkof. E. W. Stewart, Lake View, N. ¥. 



The new method of exporting dressed beef to Europe, and the success 

 that seems likely to attend this enterprise, give new interest to the 

 subject of cattle-feeding wherever the circumstances are adapted to that 

 industry. 



Should one visit the interior cities and large towns of New York with 

 a view of inspecting the character of the cattle raised in the State, ex- 

 pecting there to find a full representation, he would be greatly surprised 

 to find that most of these cattle were raised from 300 to 1,000 miles out- 

 side its borders. He might thence infer that New York is not adapted 

 to cattle-raising, or that it cannot compete with the cheaper and fresher 

 soils of the West in the production of beef. It is true that the fresher 

 and cheaper soils of the West have an advantage in requiring so much 

 less capital and furnishing the grain for fattening at one-half the 

 nominal price, but this advantage is merely temporary, and more spe- 

 cious than real. The fact that land and food are cheap comparatively in 

 the West leads to wastefulness and loss in feeding, and these western 

 advantages ought to be fully counterbalanced by a better system in the 

 East. 



The true cause of the deficiency of beef-production, as compared with 

 consumption, in the interior towns of New York, may be found in the 

 neglect to adopt a better system. That system of feeding which produces 

 a steer of 1,400 to 1,000 pounds at twenty -four to 30 months will enable 

 the New York farmer to compete most successfully in his home market 

 with beef of western growth ; but if it takes four years to grow an ani- 

 mal of that weight, the cost will exceed the market-price of the product. 

 It thus happens that those farmers who have not improved upon the old 

 system of slow growth regard beef-production as unprofitable, and have 

 substituted for it grain-raising or other marketable crop. The average 

 farmer is so conservative of the ways in which he has been educated, 

 that he seldom attempts to improve his processes, but when they become 

 unprofitable, abandons the business as hopeless. If, in his opinion, 

 some crop will bring more ready money on sale than can be made by 

 stock-raising, he raises and sells the crop, without a serious thought as' 

 to the efi'ect of this policy upon the future condition of the land. Early 

 maturity — a system securing marketable maturity at twenty-four to 

 thirty months, with a live weight of 1,200 to 1,600 pounds— will bring 

 success to beef-production in New York. 



England has greatly increased her meat-production during this 

 century, and at the same time has doubled her wheat-yield per acre. 

 Grain and stock raising must go together when it is proposed to keep 

 up the fertility of the soil. Germany has increased her meat-production 

 while devoting so large a proportion of her land to beet-sugar culture. 

 Even the refuse of the beet, after sugar extraction, will feed more cattle 

 than the same laud devoted to grain-crops; so, likewise, the lands of 

 New York, now devoted to indifferent grain-raising, with little stock, 

 would produce more grain by doubling the stock. 



