No. 4.] BP:EF production in NEAV ENGLAND. 79 



the steer is likely to pay as well as other stock, ail the 

 elements involved considered. 



The New Jersey Experiment Station fed 30 cows for one 

 year and received 3,031 quarts of milk per cow. The cows 

 were fed 8 pounds of grain daily and 17.9 pounds of coarse 

 food. The milk may be estimated as equivalent to 300 

 pounds of butter, and its average value in the districts where 

 steers Avould be produced as 221^ cents per pound, or $67.50. 

 The skim-milk will pay for making and selling the butter, 

 leaving the milking to be deducted from the butter receipts. 

 This would reduce the sum by $10, or down to $57.50. The 

 9,446 pounds of food fed by the station would make 944.6 

 pounds of steer. This added to birth weight would bring 

 him up to 1,000 pounds. lie would have to be sold at only 

 5% cents per pound live weight to pa}^ the same returns as 

 the cow. He will do better than this, or as well as butter 

 at 25 cents a pound. In the long run we must expect but- 

 ter to pay slightly better than beef, as the mass of men Avill 

 not long be tied to the cow as rigidly as she requires with- 

 out a distinct gain by it. We may expect beef to be as desir- 

 able a farm product as butter, all elements considered. 



It may be safely stated that plant food ean be produced by 

 steer feeding cheaper than it can be bought in the form of 

 fertilizers. Therefore it should be so produced as far as 

 possible. But as we are on the eve of a great, a very great, 

 expansion of our New England agriculture, all sources of 

 available plant food must be commanded. Our necessities 

 will demand a heavy use of chemicals, at least until our farms 

 reach the economic limit of production. This limit is far 

 off and now unknown. Certain it is that New England farms 

 produce but a small fraction of the crops they are capable of. 



Mr. E. W. Boise (of Blandford). In the Connecticut 

 valle}'^ we have hundreds of acres of good pasture land if 

 properly cared for. We formerly raised the finest stock on 

 our hills. I have seen four-year olds weighing 40 hundred 

 to the pair. To-day none of that stock hardly can be found. 

 Giving all praise to the Guernsey and to the Jersey stock, I 

 have claimed for quite a time that they are no stock for our 



