BEEF FATTENING. 71 



This admission was made partly to give the fullest force to 

 the assumption of the author whom I have quoted, and partly 

 because I should not have been invited here to discuss such 

 a theme. 



Nevertheless, when the prospective industry shall have 

 found a sure basis, I predict that the third section of the 

 fifty-ciglilh chapter of the Public Statutes will die the death 

 of " innocuous desuetude," and there will be no longer Com- 

 missioners armed with authority to search the crannies of 

 our purveyors for calves which died before they were four 

 weeks old. 



You can tell me how much a yearling calf costs, and the 

 approximate expense of adding one or two years more to 

 his life. 



I have been amused by the attempt of a self-styled practical 

 farmer to figure the expense he has been i^ut to to raise a 

 very respectable yearling, — to learn how quickly the puny 

 thing w^as weaned, and put to grass from early June to the 

 last of November or the first of December, and what quan- 

 tities of meadow hay he consumed from this till the middle 

 of the next May or earlier, and what a hearty yearling he 

 was. 



Let my friend, the beef fattener, take the calves from our 

 dairy farms at nominal cost, and try his feed and fodder and 

 shelter upon them, and foot up the gain or loss of the experi- 

 ment. There may be odds and ends which the young stock 

 may thrive upon. 



Have I mapped out too stupendous an undertaking ? Does 

 its comprehensiveness condemn it? Do not misunderstand 

 the scope of the proposition and you will not be appalled in 

 the least. 



I am not inviting you to furnish beef on one five hundred 

 acre farm for all New England and New York City added. 



In your speculations on the probabilities of success in this 

 work, do not base your estimates on some barren and sandy 

 farm or township Avith which you arc familiar. Go to the 

 richer grass-grooving regions, well watered, capable of being 

 transformed into rich pastui'cs by the same means which 

 you adopt on your own farms, many of which might easily be 

 made to produce double the amount of feed they now pro- 



