33 



1,500 pounds of steer that is required to purchase him there, and 

 lay him down in our market? 



The writer is pursuing a rotation of crops so far developed as to 

 give fair warrant to the belief that 7.^ tons of food, the amount 

 estimated as required to produce 1,500 pounds of live steer, can 

 be grown to advantage on 2J acres of ground. Can the western 

 producer grow this food on 2h acres of ground more than $10 

 cheaper? In either case the feeders will have equal advantage in 

 the manure produced for use on the farm and essentially the same 

 cost of application. 



The eastern farmer will have $4 per acre to expend for chemical 

 fertilizers or plant food. Under wise management I do not hesi- 

 tate to say that in a short series of years the New England pro- 

 ducer would have the more productive farm, or, in other words, 

 that he would be able to produce more beef per acre than the west- 

 ern feeder. Our soils have under intensive methods equal capac- 

 ity of production and greater retentive powers. 



The cost of tilling an acre of ground here may be slightly more 

 than in the west, possibly a half dollar an acre more during a ro- 

 tation period per year, and the protein foods essential for the 

 rations in the early days of our steer are more costly. Possibly 

 another extra $1 per acre will thus be absorbed. It is railroad 

 policy to make long hauls cheap, and wholesale transactions to 

 far-awaj' buyers is on a lower scale of prices. Bran often sells by 

 the car here within one or two dollars of local prices iu the States 

 from which it comes, while cotton-seed meal is but a little more in 

 Boston than in Chicago. Gluten is shipped from Chicago to New 

 England points for $3.90 per ton. At feeding points in the west 

 it costs nearly as much. Aside from home-grown corn not over 

 one ton of protein foods need be purchased. This seems like a 

 partial second expenditure of. the SlO advantage of location, 

 amounting, for tillage and grain, to $3.75 for the 2A acres, leaving 

 a net of but S6.25, or $2.50 per acre, to bring, with the manure 

 produced, our land in yield alongside western land. This would 

 pay for 130 pounds of acid phosphate, 30 pounds of potash and 50 

 pounds nitrate of soda per acre annually. It is adequate to place 

 our land on a parity with western laud, and, in the end, before it 

 in point of production. 



Abundant experiment station investigations in the west show 

 that the addition of manure to soils there producing no more than 

 ours as ours arc now treated gives but a meager gain in crops. 

 Manuring does not increase crops as it does here, and in my ex- 

 perience is not as enduring. The intensive farming proposed, 

 returning the excreta of well-fed steers and including :m annual 



