BEEF CATTLE. 279 



versally the custom below the latitude of 40 north, may be 

 more economical. Time and trial must solve these questions. 

 But as railways penetrate the country, making corn more valua- 

 ble to the producer, as he is in greater or less proximity to them, 

 the different modes of feeding will be worthy of consideration. 



Let us examine this important matter of fattening off, or stall- 

 feeding, a little more minutely, as to its economy. A few years 

 ago, we met a gathering of graziers and breeders in a West- 

 ern cattle growing State bordering the Ohio river, when the 

 subject of breeding, grazing, and feeding beef cattle, came under 

 discussion. They were among the most intelligent, thrifty, and 

 wealthy of that class of farmers who deal largely in neat stock, 

 and feed them for market. We asked the question: "How much 

 corn, fed from the shock, in the usual way of out-door field-feed- 

 ing, does it take to carry a three to four year old Short-horn 

 grade bullock, (as those, in that region, are admitted to be the 

 most profitable,) from the fall of the year, when corn is needed, 

 to fit him for market at any time from February to April?" A 

 half-dozen replies were made to the question, not from any actual 

 measurement that they had ever made for the inquiry appeared 

 to be a new one, in their great abundance of corn forage, which 

 they had not always been in habit of closely saving but only 

 of estimate. One replied, "about fifty bushels;" another, "sixty;" 

 another, "seventy-five;" another, "perhaps eighty," and so on 

 up to, "at the very most, a hundred." Another "estimated" 

 that "an acre of good corn, taking it as it run, would usually 

 feed off a bullock well." 



Not one of these graziers, and feeders, although they had been 

 in the business many years, and some of them made large sums 

 of money in it, had even gone into nice estimates, and probably 

 for reasons which they could not well control. In the first place, 

 they had corn enough, and the cattle must be fatted, let the quan- 

 tity consumed by them be what it might. A better reason, we 



