98 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



very sumptuously the first winter. They got some nub- 

 bins of corn from the best feeders' hands. The hay was 

 wild grass later intermixed with bluegrass and corn sto- 

 ver. Corn was all cut up into shocks of 144 or 256 hills. 

 It was fed on the ground in the fields in the shelter of 

 the timber. The second summer of the steer's life he 

 was on bluegrass. He got round and sleek there. He 

 had salt and good water and no more. The second win- 

 ter of the steer's life was like the first except he might 

 not get any nubbins of corn at all or he might get a por- 

 tion of shock corn. He generally got rather thin before 

 spring on corn stover, which was weatherbeaten in Feb- 

 ruary and March. But he came to grass with a good 

 appetite. He was now two years old and something be- 

 gan to be expected of him. He might grow fat on grass 

 alone or he might be fed green corn as soon as it ripened, 

 and this be continued until some time in December, or 

 he might be fed shock corn all winter and go to market 

 when he was three years old. Some that did not look 

 ready to feed would be roughed through the third winter. 

 After the Short-horn blood came in, the quality of the 

 cattle and their early-maturing qualities were greatly im- 

 proved. In the '505 there .were very good cattle leaving 

 Ohio. In the '6os my memory begins and some mag- 

 nificent cattle were fed in my country. They were larger, 

 rougher, fatter than cattle now, as I remember it. They 

 were far heavier. In the '705 cattle were marketed at 

 an earlier age than had been customary and seldom were 

 they more than three years old when shipped. The rail- 

 way began to supersede the drive in the '505, 



