1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 327 



hundred is a pretty high price to pay for beef on the hoof. 

 And, granting that two steers can be fed on an acre of corn, 

 an estimate suggested by the advocates of New England beef 

 factories, is there any farmer here who would consider six 

 hundred pounds of beef, live weight, to be a sufficient com- 

 pensation for the (Jorn crop of an acre — the market value 

 of the beef being thirty-six dollars? The conversion of this 

 crop into meal and ensilage it seems to me can hardly mend 

 the matter, — considering the cost of grinding the corn and 

 packing the fodder into a silo. I have said nothing of the 

 interest of the money invested in a beef factory, — thirty-two 

 thousand dollars, I think, — and the expense of labor employed 

 in the care of the cattle. I have, moreover, allowed to all 

 animals an equal aptitude to ftitten. Mr. Burleigh of Maine, 

 one of the best judges of cattle I have ever known, a farmer 

 who, by his judicious and bold importation of the best blood of 

 England into our country, has conferred a lasting benefit on 

 the agricultural interests of all these States, says ; <« Many 

 times I have fed animals equally well bred and with equal 

 care, when one would gain three pounds to the other two." 

 And, while I believe in ensilage for certain purposes, and 

 feel quite sure it is a convenient and profitable food for my 

 dairy cows during the dry pasturage of late summer, and in 

 the stable confinement of winter, I shall wait with interest 

 for the result of Mr. Burleigh's experiment in making " a test 

 between ten acres kept in grass, and the same number in corn 

 and fed as ensilage," — fed, I suppose, for beef. 



From the vision.uy speculation of such a proposition as 

 beef factories, erected when corn and roots and hay are dear, 

 and labor expensive, we turn to the practical experiments of 

 the colleges and experiment stations established in almost 

 every State in the Union, and to the intelligent cultivator on 

 his land, with the expectation that long-mooted questions of 

 agriculture will ultimately be settled to the farmer's satisfac- 

 tion and profit. While he cannot afibrd to waste his money 

 in doubtful experiments presented by advocates and not by 

 investigators, or his time in useless inquiries into phenomena 

 real or imaginary, which have no value among the processes 

 of nature, even when they happen to exist, he can accept the 

 results of the work performed by the practical scientists, 



