38 WINTER BEEF 



head per diem, in spite of the following substantial average 

 daily ration: 



Concentrated food ( linseed, cotton cake) 81b. 

 Cut fodder ($ straw, f hay) 8 Ib. 



Roots (partly swedes, partly mangold) 112 Ib. 



A very long experience of watching cattle fed on the above 

 rations leads me to believe that, besides this ration, a varying, 

 but very considerable, amount of the straw supplied as litter 

 is also eaten. 



It is a very moot point as to how much of the increase in 

 live weight is carcase. It is an extremely important matter and 

 one which demands immediate and thorough investigation. 

 Lawes estimated that one might expect 80 per cent, of the total 

 increase in live weight to be returned as carcase. I myself 

 venture to predict that this percentage would, on investigation, 

 be found to be too high. Still, assuming that it is so and also 

 * that the prime Norfolk gives an increase of 2 Ib. a day (though 

 it will be found, in practice, that it fails to do so by a small 

 decimal), we get the following result: // takes 4 Ib. of mixed 

 cakes, 3 Ib. of hay, i Ib. of straw and 56 Ib. of roots to make 

 12-8 oz. of prime beef. Besides the meat there would be a 

 considerable amount of fat in the offal. This offal fat, though 

 costing the farmer dear in feeding-stuffs, is looked upon by 

 the butcher as one of his perquisites. 



The above figures and deductions appeared in my article in 

 the Journal of the Board of Agriculture (1908) entitled "The 

 Cost of Producing Winter-beef." Not only have these figures 

 and statements been passed without serious challenge, but they 

 received, by a strange coincidence, confirmation in the results 

 of an investigation 1 carried out in Norfolk itself at the very time 

 when I was lecturing to Farmers* Clubs on the basis of notes 

 afterwards used for the article. * 



Under pre-war conditions the only means of making a profit 

 lay in the extra richness imparted to the farmyard manure. This 

 idea was developed by all concerned and by no one more than 



1 See the article "The Cost of Winter Grazing in East Norfolk" by the 

 Rev. Maurice C. H. Bird in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England (1909), page 82. 



