286 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



season when a little corn, oats, middlings, or cake, will pay 

 a large profit to feed in small quantity on pasture. We 

 have known many cases where 20 steers were kept in a field 

 furnishing full-feed for only 15, and where a profit would 

 have been made by selling two steers and buying grain to 

 feed the other 18 ; the 18 being worth considerably more, 

 at the end of the season, than the 20 kept on scant 

 pasture. 



Feeders are usually loth to feed grain on pasture, because 

 this is increasing the expense of keep, and they are apt to 

 infer increasing the cost of production. But the latter is 

 an error. The grain increases the cost of keep, but, when 

 properly given, cheapens the cost of the increase in weight. 

 The grain may be so given as to be wholly the food of pro- 

 duction, and it is only the food of production which pays. 

 If the pasture (as is often the case) is only sufficient to keep 

 cattle without growth, then the grain gives all the growth, 

 and without the grain the pasture is thrown away, as the 

 animals, not having gained anything in weight, are worth 

 no more, if as much, as before they consumed the pasture. 



But farmers usually hold the opinion that grain is dearer 

 in proportion to nutriment than grass or hay, but this is 

 also an error. Most intelligent farmers, when short of hay 

 to winter a stock, find it cheaper to purchase grain than 

 hay feeding less hay and more grain. Of course a pecu- 

 liar state of the market might reverse this, but as a general 

 fact grain is quite as cheap as hay, and the farmer should 

 never hesitate to feed a small amount of grain on pasture 

 when the grass is insufficient, for it may be laid down as 

 a rule, that scanty feeding, to a healthy beef-producing 

 animal, is wasteful feeding at all times. 



The soiling system, which has grown into favor with a 

 considerable class, as an economical mode of summering 

 stock, is treated at length in another chapter, and this 

 system will be found a substitute for grain-feeding on 

 pasture. 



