256 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



this length of time? In answering this question it 

 must be supposed that the steer is fed and not starved, 

 as is the common practice of farmers in so far as winter 

 feeding is concerned. The young steer is put, his first 

 winter, usually upon a diet of wheat straw and Indian 

 corn fodder. The result of this diet is that he weighs 

 less in the spring than he does in the fall, and has ac- 

 quired the starvation habit, which is the natural result 

 of his enforced hunger strike. It takes half of the 

 next summer, when he is turned on grass, to overcome 

 the handicap of the winter of starvation. Assuming 

 that he has fairly good pasturage during the summer, 

 that is all the feed he gets, and in the second winter 

 he undergoes the same privations as in the first. In 

 the third summer an attempt is made to prepare him for 

 the market. As a rule, he gets nothing but grass. If 

 this be blue grass and in abundance, it is all he needs ; 

 but it isn't every steer that has access to blue grass. 

 In the autumn the farmer usually feeds him some 

 freshly grown Indian corn to finish him, and in the 

 beginning of October the steer grown in this way will 

 weigh from nine hundred to eleven hundred pounds. 



If the farmer had to hire the pasture and buy the 

 straw and corn fodder and other food which is consumed 

 during these three years and a half of life, he would 

 have been feeding the animal for 1,277 days at 5 

 cents a day, which is a reasonable minimum of the cost 

 of his food for this length of time. The total cost of 

 the feeding of the animal is, in round numbers, $64. 

 Add to this the cost of the invested funds and the risk 

 cost of injury or death, and the result is, in round num- 

 bers, $75 as the cost of this animal. At 1,000 pounds 

 at 7 cents a pound, he is worth $70, showing a net loss 

 on the bringing up of this steer to a marketable state 



