73 



Suppose we add 14 lbs. of hay each per day, for 16 



weeks, . . . . . • . . 15 68 



Interest and risk, 10 per cent, for 4 months on lEirst 



cost, ........ 1 60 



Add balance against the cattle as above, . . 96 



Loss on cattle at above rates, . . . $18 24 



Now estimate the provender as above at sixty-seven cents 

 per bushel, and hay at eight dollars per ton, and it will make 

 of course a small difference in favor of the cattle. The ex- 

 pense of feed will then be forty-nine dollars eighty-two cents ; 

 add interest and risk, one dollar sixty cents, will be fifty-one 

 dollars forty-two cents ; add cost, sixty-four dollars, gives one 

 hundred fifteen dollars forty-two cents. This, upon the pre- 

 sumption that the quantity of hay consumed in the first esti- 

 mate is not underrated, leaves a balance in favor of the cattle 

 of four dollars fifty-eight cents. In case the second estimate 

 of the amount of hay required is correct, the balance against 

 the cattle would be seven dollars ninety-six cents. 



These accounts give no strong encouragement to the stall- 

 feeding of beef cattle. Many of the farmers in the county 

 have told me that they expect to get paid in the operation for ^ 

 their grain only, and make no account of the hay consumed. / 

 One of the most experienced and most successful farmers in i 

 the county states that the fatting of cattle has not been a good ( 

 business for years. He complains that the price paid for cat- 

 tle, in the fall, to be fatted, is as high, by the hundred lbs., as 

 that obtained for them in the spring ; that the markets are ca- 

 pricious and uncertain ; and that the farmers occasionally suffer 

 from gross impositions, practised upon them in the sale of their 

 cattle at Brighton, against which it is difficult to devise an 

 effectual security. The raiser of the cattle and the butcher 

 get the whole profit. He has known it to happen, that where 

 the farmer in the fall borrows money to purchase cattle for the 

 stall, the sale of these cattle in the spring, after being fatted, 

 10 



