Feeding Beef Cattle 183 
If those farms or parts of farms that are unsuited for growing 
grains can be laid to permanent pasture, it will, on the average, be 
profitable to do so. Each of these systems has certain advan- 
tages. For example, permanent pasture simplifies the fencing, 
provides the water supply, the shade, and the feed racks or bunks, 
while pastures in rotation give a much better opportunity to dis- 
tribute the manure to all parts of the farm. Permanent pastures, 
even if seriously affected by drouth, are not likely to be a failure, 
while pastures in rotation occasionally do fail. Properly managed 
permanent pastures will increase in value with age. 
The pasture crop is perhaps the most neglected of crops. With 
proper management it can be improved. First, secure a good 
stand; second, keep down the weeds; third, drain pasture land 
well; fourth, top-dress permanent pastures with manure when con- 
venient; and fifth, do not turn to pasture too early in the spring, 
as this hinders the growth of the young plants before they get a 
start. 
WINTER FEEDING IN DRY-LOT 
While feeding steers in the summer time on pasture may be 
the most profitable for those cattle feeders possessing the pasture, 
there are many farms, especially in the corn-belt, lacking in pasture 
and yet possessing an abundance of grain and dry forage that the 
farmer desires to convert into beef. On such farms winter feed- 
ing in the dry-lot is the common practice. This system of feeding 
beef cattle is not without its advantages. For example, the feed- 
ing is done at a time of year when there is little other work, and if 
the cattle are measurably protected from the wind and rain, they 
suffer less from the weather than from the heat and troublesome 
flies of summer. When the steers are purchased in the fall and 
fattened during the winter, the cattle feeder has his money tied 
up a much shorter period, resulting in correspondingly quicker 
returns. Such a system affords a very convenient method of 
converting the previous crop, grain and dry forage, into ready cash 
