288 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



than most farmers suppose. If 20 steers, all brought up 

 alike in comfortable stables, are separated the third winter, 

 and 10 are fed in a stable of 50 degrees of temperature, and 

 the other 10 are fed in the open air, it will take five tons of 

 hay, extra, to keep those in the open air in as good condi- 

 tion as those in stable ; this half-ton per steer represents 

 the loss of food from 25 degrees of colder temperature. 

 But if these steers have been brought up wild in the open 

 air for two years, and the third winter 10 are tied up in a 

 warm stable and the other 10 left out as usual, the latter 

 will be likely to do better, even with this exposure, than 

 the former in their comfortable quarters, chafing and under 

 nervous excitement from the unusual confinement. Still, 

 let it be remembered that the 10 accustomed to being con- 

 fined in the warm stable will consume at least one-half ton 

 per head less food in maintaining the same condition than 

 the 10 wild steers in the open air. This is the result of 

 the laws governing animal life, which no training nor cir- 

 cumstances can set aside. But a lot of wild Texan steers 

 would be likely to lose more from the worry of confinement 

 than from the extra cold in the open air, with freedom. 



These principles need to be well understood, for they 

 have been the cause of no little misunderstanding of ex- 

 periments reported. And this will also show the great 

 economy of rearing our sfcock in such habits as will enable 

 us to keep them in a temperature as little below that of 

 summer heat as possible. We may then put on a hundred 

 pounds live- weight with the least amount of food. 



OUT-DOOE FEEDING. 



But these Chicago exhibitions of fat-stock have brought 

 most prominently before the public the Western practice of 

 out-door feeding, even for the best cattle; and although the 

 fine animals there shown may very reasonably be considered 

 as an argument and an encouragement to those feeders who 



