14 N. H. AGR. EXPERIMENT STATION. [Bulletin 182 



to very material fluctuations in price on the New England farms. 

 This is especially true of hay the local market value of which is 

 often far in excess of its feeding value. Therefore, if we can 

 carry growing beef stock through the winter and break even after 

 paying a fair price for feed, allowing that the manure should 

 pay for the labor, the probable profit on pasture will be the meas- 

 ure of financial success. Failure to break even during winter 

 reduces the year's profit in proportion. Hence surplus pasture 

 and more barnyard manure are also important considerations 

 that may make the growing of some beef stock advisable espe- 

 cially as the maintenance of soil fertility is a much greater prob- 

 lem than can be satisfactorily met by the use of commercial 

 fertilizers. If the available labor on a farm is not sufficient to 

 utilize the whole farm as a dairy proposition beef cattle may suit 

 the conditions much better as one man can handle more animals 

 and thus make use of more land. Whether beef animals should 

 displace all or only a part of the dairy herd depends upon the 

 particular circumstances or conditions of the case, especially on 

 the basis that they are more of a one-man proposition. 



Opportunities for Growing Beef Cattle. 



At first sight it may appear that the chances for losing money 

 on wintering cattle are exceptionally good. This would undoubt- 

 edly come true on many of the smaller farms. On others it 

 would be quite the contrary, depending on the conditions. In 

 proportion as we can control the four main factors mentioned 

 the prospect whether profit or loss will be the result ceases to be 

 a matter of chance or gamble and becomes a certainty. The 

 motive that may induce one farmer to raise a few beef cattle 

 may be quite different from that which actuates another. One 

 man may live very far from a market so that he can show but 

 little profit for his trouble when he has to deliver the produce such 

 as milk, daily; another may be short of labor; a third may have 

 some idle pasture and so the conditions vary. Basically the 

 problem consists in marketing home grown farm crops by this 

 indirect method. The farm which cannot grow the larger part 

 of the feed necessarj^, including pasture, cannot afford to grow beef 

 because we cannot compete with the West in this as a general 

 proposition. 



