250 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



The best feeders of common country-bred cattle in Sussex 

 and Surrey inform me, that they consider a fair average 

 weight for animals, well fed from birth, 100 Smithfield 

 stone at one hundred weeks, giving a return of one stone 

 (eight pounds dressed weight) per week, or six shillings 

 ($1.32) per week." 



He mentions one killed by Mr. Page, that dressed 132 

 stone at one hundred weeks. This would be equivalent to 

 1,760 pounds live weight. Some of the sixteen-months 

 steers dressed, in the quarters, 600 pounds, having 120 

 pounds of rough fat, and a very small proportion of offal. 

 This is not equal in weight to several given, pages 238-40. 

 He represents that the best feeders are able to reach an 

 average of $1.43 per week at sixteen to twenty months, 

 from a Short-horn cross on common cows. This would 

 give $122 per head at twenty months old a figure that 

 American feeders would like to reach. There is nothing to 

 hinder them reaching the weights at that age, but they 

 may seldom reach those prices. Yet it may truthfully be 

 said that we can raise these steers or heifers at quite as 

 good a profit as that of the English feeder the cost of our 

 animals being no higher in proportion to the price received 

 than those raised in England. 



That we may see how the English feeder's account stands, 

 let us copy his statement of the cost of a " baby bullock " 

 seventy-one weeks old, or one year and nineteen weeks, 

 reducing the figures to our gold currency: 



Purchase of calf $8.88 



t 6.16 



per quart, 

 ........... 5.68 



Seventeen weeks, in June, July^ August, and September, on a daily 

 diet of two pounds of linseed cake, two pounds bean meal, 



mangel, hay, grass, clover, etc 17.57 



Twenty-six weeks to end of March, five pounds of cake and meal 



daily, three-fourths bushel of roots, hay and straw for fodder. . 30.27 

 Sixteen weeks to harvest, eight pounds of cake and meal daily, 



mangel, grass, clover total $1.59 per week 25.44 



Attendance, seventy -one weeks, at eleven cents 7.81 



Insurance, interest, and rent of shed 5.54 



Total . . .$107.36 



