OUT-DOOR FEEDING. 289 



have no shelter, to continue this open-air system, seeing that 

 it has here produced animals of which any feeder might he 

 proud ; and although it shows so clearly that no excellence 

 can be reached without full-feeding, and that, with it, fine 

 animals may be raised under the worst conditions of climate 

 and exposure -thus fixing a most important principle in the 

 philosophy of stock-growing yet, if taken as a proof that 

 out-door feeding is the best and most economical system in 

 winter, it will disseminate a mischievous error, and one that 

 ought to be thoroughly discussed and understood on the 

 basis of first principles. It is not likely that Mr. Gillette 

 himself, who has exhibited the most successful grade 

 Short-horns, would insist that those steers had consumed 

 no more food than they would have done had they been 

 accustomed to and kept in comfortable quarters during the 

 cold season. He probably does not believe that the same 

 amount of food will keep a steer warm in a temperature of 

 20 degrees below zero as at 50 degrees above zero. He is 

 well aware that this 70 degrees lower temperature must be 

 overcome by the heat produced from the food eaten. It is 

 not then economy of food that leads him to feed in the 

 open air ; but he will probably say that, in his situation, it 

 costs less to bestow this extra food than the expense of 

 buildings to house them, and the extra labor required to 

 feed in barn from calf-hood. It will be noted, in the 

 accounts given, that some of these steers were so wild that 

 they could not be measured and, being thus reared, they 

 would not do well in confinement as we have mentioned 

 in a previous paragraph. 



This question must be discussed from the standpoint of 

 scientific facts, not of opinions. Mr. Gillette has been so 

 successful in showing farmers how they may grow fine ani- 

 mals under all the ordinary disadvantages that surround 

 them, without shelter, and with only the canopy of heaven 

 over them, he is admirably situated, in the extent of his 

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