72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



old and sell it for the same money. As far as the steers are 

 concerned, you can turn off a heifer when she is two years old, 

 fattened on grass, but the steer must be kept until he is past 

 three years. I overheard a neighbor here say that he had a 

 yoke of oxen that would weigh 3,^Q0 pounds, and he could get 

 $300 for them to-day. I wish you would say a little miore 

 about this calf raising and what it costs. 



Professor Wing. The point that the gentlem.an has brought 

 out is a very good one, and I can match his story with regard 

 to veal, I think, in New York State. One of our neighbors 

 took two calves to market, less than eight v.eeks old, early last 

 spring — I think in February or March — and brought home 

 a little over $60 for the two. Now, that is the way for bull 

 calves to go, and it is the way for the heifer calf to go, as 

 many as you can spare, but you must bear in mind that you 

 have got to keep up the population some way, and you prob- 

 ably will have to raise some heifer calves. We have made a 

 fairly careful study of raising heifers for several years. It 

 costs us about $15 to raise a heifer calf to five or six months of 

 age. Then we have to pasture her up to two years of age before 

 she comes into production. Now, in regard to the producing 

 cow. The cow will pay for herself, if she is worth raising at 

 all, after she is two years old. You get a profit from her — ■ 

 should begin to get a profit from her — as soon as she is four 

 years old by the milk she produces. If you keep her until she 

 is eight years old she begins then to take on flesh rapidly. 

 Then is the time to get rid of her. Then what you get for 

 that cow will bring up the heifer calf until she is two years 

 old. So if the heifer calf was worth $30 when it was eight 

 weeks old for beef, why we have got to carry her along, — a 

 certain percentage of them, — enough to keep us going, because 

 we have got to make that investment. But we should have a 

 cow so good, like one of the dairy Shorthorns, that she will be 

 worth for beef, at eight years old, enough to pay for replacing 

 her with a two-year-old heifer in your herd, and that two- 

 year-old heifer should again be better than her dam was. 



Mr. Barnard. Can't the pastures back on our hills be 

 brought up and improved faster under this method of keeping 

 the dual-purpose animal and raising a few calves every year, 



