592 SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



producer can use in a practical manner. Throughout the great grazing 

 areas of the country something of definite permanent value must be done 

 to re-establish pastures or the supply of feeding stock will diminish rather 

 than increase in the next few years. 



The tremendous waste of the farm by-products of the cereal crops, 

 corn, oats and wheat, which takes place annually throughout the entire 

 country is sufficient to maintain thousands of animals in good breeding 

 condition. This material has not, as yet, been successfully used on a large 

 scale, but recent investigational work indicates that the use of a succulent 

 feed during the winter makes these dry, coarse feeds palatable to a large 

 extent. Refinement in the methods of feeding will in the future enable 

 us to utilize other waste products which are now considered almost 

 worthless. 



In the sub-humid sections, the use of the silo to preserve drought- 

 resisting crops, such as Kaffir, milo, feterita and sorghums, and the intro- 

 duction of new crops, such as Sudan grass, will make it possible to more 

 than double the livestock production of that area. In all parts of the 

 United States at least 300 pounds increase in weight can be secured on 

 the average two-year-old steer by furnishing him an abundance of grass 

 in the summer and an abundance of roughage in the winter. A limited 

 amount of high protein feed should be used to make up the deficiency of 

 the ordinary roughages usually produced where legumes cannot be success- 

 fully grown. 



It is probable that the loss of livestock from infectious and contagious 

 diseases will be greatly reduced by the practice of sanitary measures, that 

 a more careful study of breeding will result in the production of animals 

 of greater efficiency, that a better knowledge of feeding will result in 

 decreasing the cost of production, but the most potent remedy for the 

 present deficiency in the meat supply is now being administered in the 

 form of market values which leave a reasonable profit to the man who 

 has courage to invest his capital in breeding cattle and the feeds necessary 

 to maintain them. The farmer, as a business man, increases his operations 

 along those lines which promise to return the greatest profit. 



REFERENCES 



"Beef Production." Mumford. 



Indiana Expt. Station Circular 29. "Livestock Judging for Beginners." 



Farmers' Bulletins, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture: 



588. "Economical Cattle Feeding in the Corn Belt." 



580. "Beef Production in the South." 



612. "Breeds of Beef Cattle." 

 Pennsylvania Expt. Station Bulletin 133. "Steer Feeding Experiments." 



