446 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. JULY 12 
offered to country butchers who declined to make an offer 
for them, each saying: “ They are too good for my trade.” 
They were sent to Jersey City and a fair profit was realized 
on feeding them. But how far is the purchasing and 
keeping of the cheaper grades of meat before our people a 
means of discouraging better home production and an 
encouragement to the introduction of Chicago dressed 
beef ? During a recent visit to North Carolina a com¬ 
parison of our practice with that of the people of that State 
was inevitably forced upon me. Although their cattle 
have not generally been as well bred as ours, the people 
did not take to the Chicago dressed beef and it did not stay 
in their market. They patronize home production and the 
outlook for stock-breeding and feeding is more promising 
there than here. 
2. Yes. It seems more than probable that with judicious 
feeding of early-maturing animals to be slaughtered when 
from 15 to not over 20 or 24 months old, beef-raising may 
again be made a profitable industry in this State. Such 
animals must be well housed and fully fed on well 
balanced rations and not allowed to stop growing for a 
moment from their entrance into life to its close. 
Ontario County, N. Y., F. T. EMERY. 
Dairy Districts Doomed. 
The outlook for feeding cattle—cows or steers—profitably 
for next winter, is dark. Our only chance for selling is to 
some country butcher, who can use only one head a week. 
The meat markets in the City of Binghamton buy most of 
their meat from the West, and take just such pieces as 
they want. The same is the case with pork. Last March 
I had five pigs which had come through the winter fat 
and in prime order; they would weigh about 125 pounds 
each. I tried to sell them in the Binghamton markets. 
The answer I received from the butchers was that they 
could get all the pork they needed fresh from Chicago 
every day, and that they could select suoh kinds and in 
such quantities as their trade might demaud. One firm 
offered me five cents dressed and delivered. I have the ani¬ 
mals still on hand, and shall have to sell them this fall for 
heavy hogs and take the price for that class. The 
same principle exists with regard to our fattening cattle. 
We cannot raise corn so cheaply as they can in the West. 
It will .cost us more to produce the same quality of beef 
that they make in the West, and get It to market, than it 
will to feed in the West and ship the beef. In other words, 
we have to buy from the West most of the corn we do 
feed. We have to pay transportation on the gross weight 
of the beast, while the people of the West who feed the 
corn there and ship their cattle to Eastern markets 
as dressed meat, pay transportation only on the net weight, 
and the difference in freight is quite a considerable item. 
I can see no reason why tne beef-raising industry is likely 
ever again to pay in the East, for the same condition of 
affairs will continually exist. Good beef cannot be made 
with corn or grass. We live in the grass country, but not 
in the corn. The farmers are in a dilemma. We have to 
eat all of our old and dry cows, and can have the privilege 
of tasting Western beef only when we happen to stop at a 
high-priced hotel. C. M. LUSK. 
Broome County, N. Y. 
Hopeful in Pennsylvania. 
In my opinion the prospect for profitably feeding cattle 
for beef promises better for next winter than for the past 
few years. The pasturage is everywhere so good that 
should there come a drought in August or September, the 
“grass beef” or cattle fattened on grass will be ready to 
be put upon the market and consumed early. 1 am not 
expecting grass beef to be much higher next fall than it 
was last, but the sooner it is out of the way the better it 
will be for grain-fed cattle towards spring. The main 
cause of low prices is undoubtedly the ability of the 
ranchers and herders of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, 
Wyoming, the Indian Territory and other regions of lree 
pasturage in the Far West to raise cattle cheaper than 
they can possibly be raised on farms. The capitalists of 
Europe and America who mostly control the ranching 
business, pay the Government nothing for pasturage, pay 
no taxes on their vast herds to State or Nation, provide no 
hay, grain or shelter for their animals, are at no expense 
except for herders to keep their stock from straying, to 
brand the calves, and “ round up ” the droves for sorting 
and sale. 
According to the estimate of the Census Bureau of 1880, 
the cost of “ holding” or herding cattle averages irom 75 
cents to $1 per head per year, and 62>£ cents per head for 
driving to market, making the actual cost of a three year- 
old steer less than §4. It is this cruel, Inhuman ranching 
business that has impoverished the feeders in the West 
and driven the farmers of the East almost entirely out of 
the business of beef raising. The increase in the number 
of cattle raised in the United States has not been much 
greater proportionately than the increase in population; 
but as cnere has been all the time a surplus for export the 
price has been regulated, in a great measure, by the re¬ 
quirements of other countries (chiefly Great Britain,) and 
the prices they were willing to pay. According to the 
census of 1880, the number of oxen and other cattle on 
farms and ranches (not including milch cows) was, in 
round numbers, 27,00<J,0u0, and the annual increase, 
according to the estimates of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture, averaged about 1,000,000 head up to 1886. From 
1886 to 1887 the increase was about 2,250,000, and from 1887 
to 1889, it fell hack to a million per year. Cattle were the 
lowest in 1879, the average price being $15.39; then the 
price gradually rose until 1884, when it was $23.52; it has 
declined constantly since that year, standing in 1889 at 
$17.05. 
There are good reasons for believing that the ranching 
business which has been the cause of all our woes, has 
reached its hight, and must henceforth recede. The pas¬ 
turage on the ranges has been overstocked, and the cow¬ 
boys of rival stockmen have quarreled with each other 
like the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot. Wire fences have 
been cut and battles have been fought. Much of the range 
lands which were supposed to be good for nothing except 
for grazing, have been taken up by settlers for farms, and 
more will be taken every year until all that is fit for culti¬ 
vation will be occupied by actual settlers. The Govern¬ 
ment has ordered the cattle to be taken from the Cherokee 
strip in the Indian Territory, and the order has just been 
enforced. Many ranchers will be obliged to go out of the 
business, and the wild cattle from the plains will soon be 
Gypsy Moth. Male. Fig. 1 58. 
too few to affect the market; then legitimate cattle-raising 
in the West will again become a profitable business. Is it 
at all probable that this industry will ever again become 
profitable in the East ? Certainly it is. As soon as the 
business becomes profitable in the West, it will pay in the 
East. With cattle to make manure, and the manure ap¬ 
plied to the corn ground, corn can be raised at as low a fig¬ 
ure in the East as in the West. There is no such thing as 
successful farming without cattle. Cattle must be kept by 
most farmers in order to keep up the fertility of their 
farms. They must be kept even though there should be 
no profit except manure. Some of my neighbors quit rais¬ 
ing cattle several years ago, but I have continued to raise 
a few every year, and am raising 13 calves this season. 
There is no money to be made at it, and if I fed all market¬ 
able hay to my young stock, I should raise them at a loss; 
but I feed a good deal of oat-straw, chaff and clover-hay, 
which, though excellent to make growth, is not salable. 
Bradford County, Pa. J. w. INGHAM. 
A Startling Question. 
The question of feeding cattle for beef is rather a startling 
one. The beef trade has become so remote in this section 
as to be almost entirely a thing of the past. A few years 
since, even our old cows, worn out for milk, could be sold 
at remunerative prices for beef at our very doors; but now 
it is a fact that we can scarcely give them away, much less 
sell them, and the local butchers cry Western-dressed beef 
from their wagons in front of our farm houses. We raise 
Gypsy Moth. Pupa form. Fig. 161. 
no steers for beef as we did a few years ago, even for our 
own use. Why, I know a number of farmers who drive to 
Syracuse, a distance of 20 miles, and buy beef for family use 
for two and three cents per pound.—[? Eds.] As to the price 
of beef for next winter, I have relied almost entirely on the 
judgment of The R. N.-Y., which has been telling us it 
would be higher. I consider its statement a good criterion. 
I do not think the industry of beef-raising will ever again 
pay in the East. We cannot compete with the great West, 
which is fast taking up our former paying industries and 
driving us to the wall. The “New South,” the “New 
West” and new tools to work them with, demand of us a 
“New East.” h. s. wright. 
Onondaga County, N. Y. 
SOME GOOD BUTTER COWS. 
The cows shown at Figure 162 are thoroughbred and 
grade Jerseys, and will average per annum 300 pounds of 
butter per head. Those in milk in 1887 and 1888 did aver¬ 
age that amount; but the record for 1889 was not so good 
owing to the number of heifers coming in, and to the fact 
that the cows were not fed any grain in the summer. The 
picture does not show all the herd, which numbers 13 head. 
In 1880 I bought a Jersey heifer for $90. She is shown as 
the second cow from the right m the picture, and all of my 
registered stock are descended from this purchase. This 
cow never goes dry, is as gentle as she can be (in fact, all 
my cows are) and while never giving a large weekly butter 
yield, will keep steadily at the butter business all the 
year, and it is the “ all-the-year ” cows that are the profit¬ 
able ones. We sell our butter to private customers, and 
have the cows calve in the fall and winter so that we 
have the largest supply of butter when the demand is 
greatest and the price highest. If more dairymen would 
adopt this plan there would not be such a glut of dairy 
products every summer as there now is. I believe it has 
been proved by actual test that a cow calving in late fall 
or winter will give more milk in a year than one that 
calves in the spring; she certainly will be more profitable. 
But many dairymen seem to think that cheap pasture 
must necessarily make profitable milk, and consequently 
we are sure always to have the greatest number of fresh 
cows in the spring. I think it is an advantage that a 
heifer should drop her first calf in the spring or summer, 
because grass will promote the milk flow, and her udder 
will naturally acquire greater capacity than it would if 
she were fed on dry feed. My butter cost me in 1888 (and 
about the same since) 15 cents per pound for feed, and 
sold for an average of 33 cents. The calves, skimmed 
milk and manure more than offset the labor, which goes 
to show that good cows will pay if they are properly 
treated, and their product is worked up according to the 
best methods. My butter account is as follows: 
300 pounds of butter, at 33 cents.$90 00 
Less cost of feed, at 15 cents per pound.45.00 
Profit over feed per head.$54.00 
It is quite as easy to make good butter as it is to make 
poor; one has to go through about the same motions in 
either case, only when he makes good butter he makes the 
motions at just the right time. 
These cows, when photographed, were in a Timothy 
pasture, but the picture shows Oxeye Daisies as the princi¬ 
pal feed; there were a good many daisies there when the 
picture was taken (in 1889), but this year they hardly show 
in that field at all. Daisies are a smaller nuisance in cow 
pastures than garlic, which, in this section, is the dairy¬ 
man’s bane in the spring. The Rural said recently that 
it was told that if the heifers and dry cows w r ere turned 
into the field first they would eat all of the garlic and then 
the milch cows could be pastured there without fear of 
having the milk flavored with garlic. A milk dairyman 
of this county told me the same thing; but how about the 
dry stock eating the best of the grass while eating the 
garlic ? This they will surely do. 1 never knew butter to 
be flavored so badly with garlic as it is this year. Some 
of my customers objected to it so strongly, that I made 
separate churnings of the cream from the night’s and 
morning’s milk; the latter had no garlic or rank, " grassy” 
llavor; the volatile odor had passed off during the night 
through the lungs, skin and bowels of the cows. 1 do not 
see how the customers stood it who got the full garlic- 
flavored butter made from cream from the night’s milk 
only, as none of them were Italians. A. L. crosby. 
Catonsville, Md. 
MASSACHUSETTS US. THE GYPSY MOTH. 
Its thoughtless introduction; parasitic foes; probable 
extent of infested area; precautions and warfare 
against it; plan of campaign; portraits and de¬ 
scription. 
It is now about 20 years since an over-zealous entomolo¬ 
gist imported from Germany the pest that is now. known 
as the Gypsy Moth. His name was L. Trouvelot, and he 
is now living in Paris, but at the time of the importation 
he lived in Medford, about eight miles from Boston, where 
he experimented in raising silk from our native silk¬ 
worms and introduced this European species for the same 
purpose. Through carelessness or otherwise, he allowed 
the pest to escape, and to-day Massachusetts has been 
called upon to appoint an expensive commission to take 
charge of the measures against it, and thus far has appro¬ 
priated $50,000 for its extermination. Upon the first ap¬ 
propriation of $25,000 last March, it was thought that its 
ravages were confined to an area in the form of an ellipse, 
about 1}4 mile long, by half a mile wide; but upon dis¬ 
covering that it covered a territory 10 miles long by six 
wide, another appropriation of $25,000 was called for and 
granted. The pest is found in the towns of Winchester, 
Arlington, Somerville, Stoneham, Melrose, Malden, 
Everett, Revere and Chelsea. 
Since the commission was organized the destruction of 
the pest has been vigorously pushed. Its ravages are not 
confined to any one order of vegetation. It not only de¬ 
foliates the shade and fruit trees, but infests shrubbery as 
well. Prominent entomologists in Europe say that if the 
Gypsy Moth should get a foothold in this country, it 
would become a far greater pest than the Colorado potato 
beetle, because it is so prolific and feeds on so many differ 
ent plants, while the potato beetle confines its depreda¬ 
tions to a small number. Thus it is that the labors of the 
commission will, without doubt, be required for a long 
