FATTENING STEERS. 603 



cattle. I then turn on my cattle and hogs and they clean up 

 the fields. 



FEEDING CATTLE. 



I usually feed about one hundred and twenty-five head of 

 steers, one-half of Avliich are of my own breeding, and are 

 grade Short-Horns. I make it a point to Winter them well. 

 The first season I allow them the range of the stalk fields during 

 the day and at night they are put into a lot by themselves and 

 given a good feed of corn. 



My pasture is the common prairie grass. As soon as it is 

 large enough in the Spring to afford good pasture, I brand the 

 calves and turn them out with the other stock cattle. They 

 are salted frequently and well cared for during the herding 

 season, but I feed nothing until the pasture becomes dry in the 

 Fall. I then commence to feed plenty of hay until the stalk 

 range is ready, when I turn all the cattle into it, at the same 

 time giving them free access to a rick of good ha}'. They are 

 treated in this manner until the first of March, when they are 

 turned into the feed yard and are given all the corn they will 

 eat, until the pasture is again good, when they are turned out 

 and treated as in the preceding season. 



Each steer will eat two-thirds of a bushel of corn, and 

 will gain on an average at least two pounds per day. I make 

 my grade Short-Horns, when they are twenty-eight to thirty- 

 four months old, weigh from sixteen hundred to seventeen 

 hundred pounds. The natives that I buy will not weigh 

 quite so much. 



FATTENING STEERS. 



I fatten them the next Winter or the Winter before they 

 are coming three years old. They are usually taken off the 

 pasture about the fiist of October and turned into a ten acre 

 field of corn. When first put in I do not allow them to remain 

 many hours at a time, but gradually accustom them to a full 

 feed of corn. After the ten acres are eaten I turn them into 

 a field of one hundred acres. Both these fields connect with 

 the feed yard where I have a good spring of pure water. They 

 also have access at all times to hay and salt. When this field 



