Published  by 
The  Rural  Publishing  Co. 
333  W.  30th  Street 
New  York 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
The  Business  Farmer’s  Paper 
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Postpaid 
Single  Copies,  Five  Cents 
vol.  r.xxv. 
NEW  YORK.  JAXT'ARY  22,  1016. 
No.  4362. 
Beef  Cattle  on  Eastern  Farms 
The  Steer  vs.  the  Dairy  Cow 
I  mu!,  with  very  great  interest,  an  article  on  page 
11.14  of  last  year,  entitled.  “Easy  Money  and  Easy 
Stock  Keeping.”  Will  you  give  me  your  judgment  as 
to  whether  the  plan  described  is  a  feasible  one  on  New 
York  State's  moderate  priced  hill  grass  farms?  Could 
results  equal  to  those  described  be  reasonably  expected 
— given  good  management  of  course?  If  oltr  Canadian 
friend  is  correct  in  his  policy  it  would  seem  to  upset  the 
usual  opinion  that  there  is  no  profit  in  the  business  of 
raising  beef  cattle  in  the  Eastern  States.  II is  plan 
seems  surprisingly  simple.  If  it  is  souud  it  would 
seem  to  open  the  way  to  a  large  use  of  our  Eastern 
land — now  selling  at  very  low  figures  -for  cattle  rais¬ 
ing.  with  a  market  at  the  door  almost.  It  seems  too 
good  to  be  true,  and  I  presume  there  is  some  “out.'' 
about  it.  I  would  like  to  have  your  opinion  briefly. 
S.  w. 
Ills  refers  to  a  plan  of  keeping  beef  cattle  in 
such  a  way  that  they  largely  take  cave  of  them¬ 
selves.  The  farm  is  in  good  pasture  grass,  and  well 
watered.  During  the  Summer  the  cattle  stay  at 
pasture  and  require  little  care  except  for  salting  or 
preventing  accidents.  On  the  fields  nearest  the 
barns  and  sheds  clover  and  roots  are  grown — the 
latter  with  hired  labor.  During  Winter  appliances 
ere  fitted  out  with  an  outfit  of  cows  and  tools  suited 
to  dairying.  They  know  how  to  milk,  and  are  used 
to  the  business.  They  could  not  very  well  break  off 
and  change  to  beef.  It  would  be  a  year  or  so  be¬ 
fore  they  could  expect  any  cash  income  from  beef, 
while  milk  is  u  cash  product,  and  they  have  formed 
the  habit  of  doing  a  regular  monthly  cash  business, 
'then  it  seems  n  great  waste  to  use  the  entire  milk 
for  feeding  calves,  as  for  years  the  dairy  has  been 
conducted  on  (lie  principle  of  feeding  the  cows 
heavily,  getting  all  the  milk  possible,  and  selling  it 
for  cash.  Tims  few  farmers  would  he  willing  to 
give  up  all  the  milk.  Even  if  they  kept  beef  cows 
they  would  want  to  milk  them  and  sell  cream  or 
make  butter.  This  would  make  more  work  than 
the  plan  of  letting  the  cattle  take  care  of  themselves. 
We  think,  however,  there  are  some  places  where 
ibis  plan  would  prove  successful  if  a  fair  price  for 
the  beef  could  be  assured.  I'suully  small  lots  of 
beef  cattle  are  uot  salable  at  a  good  price.  In  a 
few  smaller  cities  and  towns  there  are  still  local 
butchers,  but  most  of  them  have  disappeared,  and 
(In*  big  beef  companies  have  a  monopoly  of  the 
Shooting  Holes  in  a  State’s  Reputation 
IMY  YORK  State  has  won  great  honor  at  the 
Panama  Exposition  by  capturing  the  grand 
prize  for  best  apples.  Nothing  finer  ever  grew  on 
a  tree  than  the  fruit  which  won  these  prizes.  Yet 
right  at  the  time  the  news  of  this  great  victory  was 
ieeeived  the  apple  (and  many  others  like  it)  pic¬ 
tured  at  Fig.  30  was  found  in  a  barrel  of  New  York 
fruit  packed  and  sold  as  No.  1  !  The  photograph  in 
this  case  tells  no  lie.  but  shows  the  exact  size  and 
character  of  the  apple! 
A*  Rochester  business  man  bought  three  barrels  of 
apples,  and  paid  $13.50  for  the  fruit.  One  he  kept 
himself,  t lie  other  two  were  sent  to  friends  as 
(  hristmas  presents.  Surely  Santa  Claus  ought  to 
receive  a  very  cordial  welcome  when  he  comes  with 
barrel  of  No.  1  New  York  apples  at  a  time  when 
(he  State  is  winning  gold  medals  at  San  Francisco. 
The  barrel  made  a  fine  appearance  when  opened, 
and  for  about  six  inches  down  from  the  end  all  was 
well.  Then  they  ran  into  a  hunch  of  just  such  fruit 
as  is  shown  at  Fig.  30.  Word  soon  came  that  the 
The  Trotting  Bull  of  Sterling.  Fig.  29 
are  used  to  make  feeding  easy,  so  that  one  man  can 
care  for  a  large  herd  of  cattle.  There  is  no  silo,  but 
roots  take  the  place  of  silage.  The  cows  are  not 
milked  hut  simply  nurse  I  heir  calves  so  that  the 
cost  of  labor  is  quite  small.  The  theory  of  this  sys¬ 
tem  is  that  the  beef  cattle  practically  take  care  of 
themselves  and  that  the  calves — with  the  labor  cost 
•  aken  out — -pay  more  for  the  milk  than  the  milk 
dealers  do. 
We  have*  records  of  several  places  in  the  Eastern 
States  where  some  such  plan  is  successfully  carried 
out.  bid  it  is  not  general,  and  most  stock  fanners 
doubt  if  if  would  pay.  The  farm  must  be  naturally 
moisi  and  capable  of  supplying  good  grass  right 
through  the  Summer.  In  the  drier  sections,  and 
where  droughts  prevail  in  Summer,  there  would  be 
trouble  in  carrying  the  cattle  through.  It  would 
be  necessary  to  grow  millet  or  corn  fodder  in  order 
to  provide  green  feed,  and  this  would  require  extra 
labor.  Where  a  farmer  has  a  large  swamp  or  a  wet 
meadow  which  cannot  he  cultivated,  and  does  not 
want  to  milk  cows,  the  beef  cattle  might  pay  on  me¬ 
dium-priced  land.  A  good  many  farmers  realize 
that  they  arc  producing  milk  at  a  loss,  or  without 
any  profit  if  they  count  their  labor  at  hired  men's 
v ages,  yet  there*  is  another  side  to  this.  These  men 
trade,  both  buying  and  soiling.  The  mail  with  only 
a  few  head  of  cattle,  no  matter  how  choice,  would 
he  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  market.  It  would  be 
not  unlike  sending  a  few  barrels  of  good  apples  to 
the  general  market  for  sale  when  the  town  was 
full  of  them.  They  would  sell  for  something,  but 
such  a  small  lot  would  not  command  the  attention 
of  the  best  buyers  and  the  cost  of  handling  it  would 
be  comparatively  heavy.  Tf  the  grower  could  fill  a 
car  or  combine  with  his  neighbors  and  fill  one.  with 
the  quality  uniform  and  good,  they  could  sell  to 
much  better  advantage,  or  even  induce  buyers  to 
come  up  and  bid  for  the  fruit. 
It  would  he  much  the  same  way  with  the  beef 
cattle.  In  order  to  sell  them  at  a  profit  it  would 
be  necessary  lo  have  enough  of  them  to  ship  car- 
load  lots,  and  make  it  worth  wliilo  for  buyers  to 
tome  in,  so  that  the  sale  would  represent  cash  about 
the  same  as  milk  does.  If  several  neighbors  could 
combine  so  as  to  have  a  good  supply  of  cattle  the 
1  lau  would  work,  provided  the  farmers  had  moist 
pasture  land,  not  subject  to  drought,  and  would  ar¬ 
range  things  so  as  to  save  all  possible  labor.  The 
plan  has  usually  failed,  because  farmers  could  not 
sell  their  stock  b>  advantage,  not  having  enough  of 
it  to  attract  first-class  buyers. 
Christmas  presents  were  about  the  same — fair  at 
the  top.  but  foul  when  you  got  down  inside.  The 
names  of  the  seller  and  of  the  packer  were  both  on 
the  barrel,  and  the  Rochester  man  wrote  them  both 
asking  for  an  explanation.  We  did  the  same,  ask¬ 
ing  how  such  a  thing  could  happen.  Neither  of 
tli cm  has  ever  replied  to  us.  but  the  seller  wrote 
at  once  to  our  Rochester  friend  and  returned  the 
$13.56.  Ih>  could  not  explain  how  it.  happened,  but 
told  the  buyer  simply  to  pay  what  the  apples  were 
worth.  This  valuation  was  put  at  $2.50  per  barrel, 
and  thus  the  seller  is  to  return  $6  of  the  purchase 
price.  As  this  financial  settlement  has  been  made 
we  do  not  print  the  names  of  the  packer  and  the 
seller,  and  neither  of  thorn  has  seen  fit  to  offer  any 
explanation  for  putting  such  fruit,  into  a  barrel  of 
No.  1  apples.  Anyone  should  be  able  to  see  that 
this  kind  of  packing  will  ruin  the  chances  for  high- 
class  retail  trade,  which  is  the  most  desirable  trade 
in  the  world.  Of  what  use  is  it  for  careful  fruit 
growers  to  win  the  highest  prizes  at  fruit  shows 
while  other  packers  shoot  holes  in  their  hack  with 
such  apples  as  the  one  here  shown?  Who  can  blame 
our  Rochester  friend  for  saying  this: 
"As  we  get  into  them  they  are  worse  and  worse. 
There  is  not  one  good  apple  in  10  and  we  are  now 
