THE FEEDING AND MANAGEMENT OF CATTLE. 



By W. A. HENRY, 



Professor of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, University 



of Wisconsin. 



Ten years ago the cattle business of the country was undergoing a 

 great and wonderful change; companies were being formed to control 

 vast herds which were to range unrestrained over the western plains, 

 with no provisions as to feed except the seeming abundance of natural 

 grasses, and little care except rounding up and branding. With this 

 unprecedented expansion came the natural attendant of good prices 

 for cattle of almost any quality in the older agricultural sections, and 

 beef- producers everywhere made money. It mattered little in Illinois 

 or Iowa whether a fattening steer ate half a bushel of corn a day or 

 only a third of a bushel, for there was proftt in the business, and giv- 

 ing attention to little details about feeding was not to be thought of in 

 such times. Those fanners who had advanced in dairying far enough 

 to make line goods likewise found high prices awaiting their products 

 and were satisfied to continue their feeding operations with little 

 thought of closer economy. 



But times have changed; the young stock bought from our western 

 farms at good prices to go to the plains proved fruitful and multiplied 

 amazingly, and hordes of their descendants have been coming back 

 year after year to aid in depressing t lie cattle market. Dairy products 

 have kept up wonderfully well, but I do not think we can hope for higher 

 prices at any time than have ruled the past year. 



We are passing through a period of lulling prices which began years 

 ago with the manufacturer, carrier, and merchant, and which is now 

 bearing down most heavily upon our agricultural industries. The mar- 

 velous advancement made in transportation facilities the world over 

 has brought about a new let of conditions; stock, bred thousands of 

 miles apart and reared under the most diverse conditions of range, cli- 

 mate, feed, and cost of production, meet at the great commercial cen- 

 ters, to be sold according to supply and demand, quality alone being 

 the varying factor. The problem is still further complicated by the 

 production of meat in distant parts of the world, which is now shipped 

 as frozen carcasses to the great meat consuming centers. Nor is there 

 any going backward in this matter. We can not hope that any of the 



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