CATTLE FEEDING EXPERIMENTS. 



BY H. R. SMITH. 



The fact that eastern Nebraska has a soil and climate un- 

 usually favorable for corn growing has made this the money 

 crop of the state. No section of equal area produces more 

 corn than is annually grown in the eastern third of Nebraska, 

 and this fact, coupled with our distance from the large con- 

 suming centers, making freight charges heavy, fully explains 

 why corn in Nebraska commands a figure below that in any 

 other state of the Union. The expense of hauling corn so far 

 is reason enough for converting much of it into a more con- 

 centrated form, as meat, or milk products, before shipment. 



That the land is already showing signs of impoverishment 

 due to the constant growing of grains which have been sold 

 thru the elevators rather than fed on the farms is a yet 

 stronger argument in favor of more stock feeding in this 

 state. More complaints of soil impoverishment have reached 

 the Experiment Station within the last two years than ever 

 before and inquiries are constantly being received regarding 

 methods of farming by which the fertility of the soil may be 

 maintained. A field near Harvard, Nebraska, which has been 

 in grain the past twenty-six years has produced during the 

 last three years a total of 31 bushels of wheat to the acre, an 

 average of 10 1 / 3 bushels per year. An adjoining field owned 

 by the same man and cultivated in the same manner, but one 

 which has been manured and has been in clover part of the 

 time, produced 90 bushels in the same three years, or an aver- 

 age of 30 bushels per acre. This is but one of many such 

 instances which might be cited. 



With conditions as they exist, it would seem that more 

 stock should be fed in our state and that of this stock a. larger 



BULL. 93, AGR. EXP. STATION OF NEBR. VOL. XVIII, ART. IV. 



