224 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



tlie case of beef the classic experiments of Lawes and Gilbert and the 

 more recent investigations by Haecker at Minnesota on beef production 

 are all that the practical stock feeder has to guide him. Both of these 

 investigations apply to the production of heavy mature beef and, although 

 models of their kind, are of questionable value under modern conditions. 

 I have found it impossible to obtain figures showing the daily live weight 

 gains for lambs. Most of the experiments carried out by Agricultural 

 Colleges on the feeding of sheep relate to the full-grown or nearly mature 

 sheep and show daily live weight gains of from only J to | lb. per head per 

 day. On my own farm I have been producing early lambs from heavy 

 breeds for many years and have made a practice of weighing them every 

 week. My experience is that when early lambs and their dams are 

 forced with green fodder and concentrates from the birth of the lambs 

 until the latter reach a weight of 90 lb., the lambs will gain f to 1 lb. per 

 head per day, but that after a weight of 90 lb. has been passed the daily 

 live weight gain decreases. 



3. Young animals finished for the butcher realise higher prices per lb. 

 than older and heavier animals correspondingly finished. Early maturing 

 or baby beef realises at least 6s. more per cwt. live weight than heavy 

 beef 10 cwt. or over, and early lamb as a rule from 25 to 50 per cent, more 

 than mutton. 



It is sometimes argued that if all flesh-producing animals were 

 slaughtered at a much earlier age than at present our live stock population 

 would be reduced. This is not so. Experience in the United States of 

 America, which has already been quoted, shows that as the age of 

 slaughter of the beef cattle on the ranges became less, the number of 

 breeding females increased and also the number of cattle slaughtered per 

 annum. The same trend of events would be manifest in this country, 

 indeed it is beginning, and a rapid extension is badly needed. 



The marketing of our stock at an early age enables the farmer to turn 

 out a finished article at a reduced cost of production for which a higher 

 price is obtainable and provides him with the only effective means of 

 holding his own against the best imported beef and mutton. 



State Aid to the Live Stock Industry. 



Let us now see what is being done in Great Britain, Northern Ireland 

 and the Irish Free State towards the improvement of live stock by financial 

 assistance from the State. 



Until quite recently all efforts to improve the live stock of the Empire 

 were left entirely to private individuals — the breeders of pedigree stock — 

 and this small band of enthusiastic workers have left behind them a 

 notable monument to their skill and unremitting labours in the formation 

 of breeds and in the improvement which they effected in the type and 

 quality of pure bred stock. 



It was only at a comparatively recent date that the British Government 

 considered the agricultural industry to be of suflicient importance to 

 justify the State in making some financial provision for its improvement 

 and development. 



The first Parliamentary grant for the special purpose of live stock 

 improvement was voted in 1885. This grant was given to Ireland to be 



