300 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



PRESENT CONDITION OP CATTLE-FEEDING IN NEW YORK. 



I cannot report much general advancement among cattle-feeders of 

 New York beyond the system of twenty-live years ago; for, as already 

 stated, most of those who found cattle-raising unprofitable abandoned 

 it for other agricultural products, instead of attempting to improve the 

 system. The general system may be summed up in this manner : The 

 calves are allowed to suckle the dam six to ten days, and are then fed 

 upon a mixture of new and skim milk for a short time, when they are 

 reduced to skim-milk or whey alone, in cheese districts. The skim-milk, 

 if given in sufficient quantity, will grow a fine calf in connection with 

 grass ; but it is usually given in such scanty measure, that the calf 

 makes a very slow growth, and at ten to twelve weeks is often turned 

 into an indifferent pasture. These ordinary skim-milk calves reach a 

 weight of 250 to 300 pounds at six months, and 350 to 450 pounds at one 

 year old. If fed upon whey alone, they will scarcely reach the former 

 figure, even with grass, because whey is ouly one element of food, (sugar,) 

 and the calves are so iDOorly nourished while young that they do not 

 thrive when they come to rely upon grass. The second year the animals 

 reach a live- weight of from 550 to 80l> pounds, and at the end of the 

 third year 850 to 1,100 pounds ; averaging rather under than over 1,000 

 pounds at three years old. During the fourth year they are prepared 

 for market by a little extra pasture together with ten to twenty bushels 

 of corn, and reach a weight of 1,100 to 1,400 pounds at the end of the 

 fourth year ; the average is not over 1,250 pounds. This is an average 

 daily gain of only eight-tenths of a pound per day. They are kept in 

 a sort of store condition until the last year, and it may well be supposed 

 they do not then readily take on the fattening habit after being kept so 

 long in an unthrifty state. This system is called by those who practice 

 it "a healthy, natural growth." But the market is always dull for this 

 "natural growth," and consequently these animals are sold for 20 per 

 cent, less per pound than those that make a rapid growth and reach 

 1,400 to 1,000 pounds at two and a half years old. The ordinary market- 

 price of these four-year-old animals is about 5 cents per pound, live 

 weight, or $02.50. This pays the feeder an average of only 4.42 cents 

 per day for four years — certainly very little encouragement — and we 

 can easily see why farmers abandon so hopeless a business. But, 

 however discouraging this statement may be, it is as favorable an 

 exhibit as can be truthfully given of the general system of cattle-feeding 

 in New York. 



FEEDING CATTLE RAISED BY OTHERS. 



Another branch of our system consists in purchasing steers from two 

 and one-half to three and one-half years old, and feeding these a single 

 season. This class of feeders have studied the question of the cost of 

 adding to the live weight of cattle more thoroughly than the farmer who 

 raises them. 



Here the first difficulty that confronts the feeder is the general un- 

 thrifty condition of these steers. They have, in a majority of cases, 

 been kept in such a state of suspended growth as to lessen the normal 

 capacity of the digestive system and the powers of assimilation in the 

 secretory vessels. It thus requires from one to two months before these 

 animals enter upon a stage of thrifty growth, and this time and the 

 food eaten are practically sacrificed, as compared with animals in a thrifty 

 state. 



Feeders of experience, therefore, seek animals whose organs are all 



