134 FEEDING AKIMALS. 



pounds; tenth week, 16.08 pounds; eleventh week, 16 

 pounds ; twelfth week, 15.90 pounds. 



The calves gained very unequally, individually, owing to 

 the constitution of each calf. Some gained much more 

 rapidly than others, and also gained quite unequally in dif- 

 ferent weeks ; but the result stated is the average of the 

 ten. We regarded this experiment as very instructive ; not 

 only as showing the constant increase in cost of putting on 

 a pound live weight, but as showing the value of skim 

 milk in growing calves. It will be observed that the 

 amount of milk began to decrease the tenth week. This 

 was caused by the calves learning to eat grass. They 

 increased more rapidly after learning to eat grass, when 

 given at the same time what milk they would drink. It 

 may be interesting to some of our readers to state, that we 

 find skim milk worth from 30 to 50 cents per 100 pounds 

 to feed calves up to the age of six months. By the aid of 

 milk, with abundance of grass, they may be made to weigh 

 from 450 to 600 pounds at that age ; and a continuance of 

 this liberal feeding, although grain is substituted for milk, 

 may produce yearlings of 800 to 1,000 pounds weight, 

 instead of little more than half that weight under a scanty 

 system of feeding. The experiments of Sir J. B. Lawes, 

 of Eothamstead, England, also prove that the cost of put- 

 ting on weight is in proportion to the age and size of the 

 animal. This fact appears very plain and indisputable to 

 any one who has studied it ; and yet, a want of its practi- 

 cal adoption among stock-growers, causes a loss of not less 

 than $50,000,000 per year in the United States. And this 

 would only be $11.50 per head for the 4,341,824 head 

 received at seven principal live stock markets of the 

 country in 1881. A close examination would have shown 

 that more than $50,000,000 in food had been thrown away 

 in this slow and unprofitable growth. We do not mean 

 that all of them had been grown in disregard of the law of 



