CATTLE GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 783 



winter more stock than he has food for, is tempted to feed a lit- 

 tle short in the hope that he may get through without purchas- 

 ing feed, and his cattle will not be in a condition to bring a fair 

 price in the spring; or if he must buy food, it is usually much 

 scarcer and higher in price in the spring than in the fall. 



There are a few fixed principles in feeding that the farmer 

 should keep in mind. For example : it takes a certain amount 

 of food to supply the waste of the system, and on this food there 

 is no profit. This can be illustrated by the fuel burned under a 

 boiler to generate steam to drive machinery. A moderate fire, 

 which is not sufficient to bring the water to a boil, might be 

 kept up all day and no power generated and no profit accrue, 

 but a little more fuel added would start the water to boiling, 

 and it would be easy to keep it so. If the animal is merely 

 fed what will supply the waste through the winter, we have 

 made no profit on the food, but the addition of a small amount 

 of rich food will enable us to make a profit on all the animal 

 has eaten. 



Another fact is, that warmth and shelter are, to some ex- 

 tent, an equivalent for food. Or, in other words, one purpose 

 which food subserves in the animal is to maintain vital heat, 

 and food used for this purpose can not be used to replace waste 

 tissue or add muscle or fat. I have an agricultural boiler which 

 gives a good illustration of this fact. The boiler holds sixty 

 gallons, and as it is one foot higher than the stove on which it 

 is placed, and three feet in diameter, there is about nine super- 

 ficial feet of surface exposed to the air. I find that on a cold, 

 windy day it will take an hour longer and double the amount 

 of fuel to bring the water to a boil if this surface is unpro- 

 tected. There are farmers still who claim that cattle will do 

 as well without as with shelter, and they refer us to the fine 

 cattle that are fattened on the prairies as a proof of their state- 

 ment. We grant that fine fat cattle are reared without shelter, 

 but that does not change the fact that food used to maintain 

 heat can not be used for any other purpose, and these same 

 cattle would have been fattened on a much less quantity of 

 corn if they had been protected. In a prairie country of cheap 



