HOME-BEED CATTLE. 277 



should regard his presence with pleasure and no rough- 

 ness be used among them. Ill-temper in a herdsman may 

 be almost as destructive to profits in cattle-feeding as 

 pleuro-pneumonia in the herd. Home-bred animals, treated 

 with this full measure of kindness, and fed intelligently, 

 will make a steady growth from the beginning to the last 

 day of ripening for market. It requires several months for 

 cattle in a strange place to get over the nervous excitement 

 consequent on the change. This is the strong argument 

 for raising your own animals. They are kept on the same 

 plan through the whole period no new habits to learn, 

 and, consequently, no checks in growth. The same system 

 of full-feeding, described in previous pages, will continue 

 through the second year of feeding on the early-maturity 

 system, which endeavors to fit cattle for market in 24 to 30 

 months. This can only be done where the feeder raises his 

 own animals, and supplies them with abundant and appro- 

 priate food from the first to the last day of his ownership. 



SUMMER FEEDING. 



Farmers regard this period in feeding as the most favor- 

 able and economical. It is no doubt the most favorable 

 for producing growth, not only because succulent grass is 

 the food, but the warm season is more favorable for laying 

 on flesh and fat than the cold season, because so much less 

 food is required to keep up animal heat. But it may be 

 doubted whether feeding in summer actually costs less 

 than in winter, because, as a general rule, the whole coun- 

 iry over, it takes three times as many acres to summer the 

 stock as to winter it ; and only on the supposition that the 

 labor in preparing the winter food costs more than the 

 capital invested in the extra land used for pasturing, can it 

 be considered more economical. . Many of the best cattle- 

 feeders, both in the United States and Europe, do not con- 

 sider it economical to use so much land for grazing cattle, 



