'MjjjfflUt 
WEEKLY $1.00 PER YEAR, 
Vol. LXXIII. No. 4280, 
.T vV 
‘Tj 7 
STEER FEEDING IN NEW JERSEY. 
A Business Likely to Come Back. 
OULD it ho profitable and safe to buy 1000- 
pound steers at this time, feeding tboin for five 
mouths or until Spring, and then disposing of 
them? I mean to finish them off for the mar¬ 
ket. What ago steer is it most profitable to buy? Will 
the European War tend to increase market price by 
Spring? I have as a ration for this Winter’s feeding, 
corn silage, corn and cob meal, and can purchase either 
wheat bran or cottonseed meal. Would this hi' as large 
and safe a means of profit as that of putting on dairy 
cows? 1 know it would mean considerably less work. 
New Jersey. ' j. e. w. 
There are so many factors involved in the inquiry 
that it would be quite necessary to know more of the 
local conditions in order to answer the questions 
with the most intelligence. In the first place, the 
cost of transportation from sections where feeders 
could he purchased in carload lots adds materially 
to the cost of the animals delivered to the farm. The 
loss of one or two animals, either during the period 
of transportation or in 
getting them accustom¬ 
ed to local feeding or 
<• 1 i m a t i c conditions, 
would consume consid¬ 
erable of the profits. In 
the second place, condi¬ 
tions for marketing in 
(lie East are disappoint¬ 
ing. In many sections 
of the State, butchers or 
buyers will pay no more 
for prime steers in a fin¬ 
ished condition than 
I hey will for old dairy 
cows in good flesh. A 
surprisingly small per¬ 
centage of our butchers 
buy animals on the 
hoof, preferring rather 
(o buy so many hind 
quarters, so many loins 
or so many fore quar¬ 
ters on the hook. They 
are not butchers in the 
strict sense of the term, 
but rather meat cutters. 
Their argument, no 
doubt, is a convincing 
one; namely, that they 
do not have to dispose 
of the refuse products, 
nor to keep the neces¬ 
sary help and equip¬ 
ment necessary for 
slaughtering. Their running expenses are much less. 
On the other hand, if the inquirer can obtain rep¬ 
resentatives of any of the beef breeds locally or de¬ 
livered at his station at reasonable cost, and pro¬ 
vided lie can market his finished animals at a price 
consistent with the quality of the meat produced, 
there is no reason why beef annuals should not con¬ 
vert his corn silage, cornmeal and purchased cotton¬ 
seed meal into meat at a profit. He ought to obtain 
market prices for his farm-grown products, he paid 
day wages for the labor involved, and have the ma¬ 
nure as a dividend. Animals known as short two- 
year-olds, weighing from 800 to 1,000 pounds, would 
make the best mediums for feeding. 
If he lives in a dairy section, and the farmers in 
that community buy a great many dairy cows, as is 
lie prevailing custom, it would seem reasonable to 
believe that a more profitable line of procedure would 
result in ease dairy heifers were purchased and fed 
through the Winter months, and sold as they were 
about to freshen in the Spring: for instance, it would 
he possible to buy a carload of bred heifers at a cost 
varying from $50 to $05 each : they could be wintered 
on silage, corn and cob meal, supplemented with 
some cottonseed meal, and would, no doubt, bring in 
the neighborhood of $90 to $100 each in the Spring. 
Dairymen pay these prices for heifers or cows 
brought in from New York State and Pennsylvania, 
and I know of no reason why such a scheme would 
not pay. The heifers should lie tuberculin-tested and 
housed in such a way as would promote health and 
vitality. They would utilize the farm products 
economically and the voidings would he just as val¬ 
uable. 
In case J. E. W. lias an abundance of pasture land, 
he might buy heifer calves a year old, run them 
through the \\ inter, as suggested, put them on grass 
in the Spring, anti either sell them in the ball, if 
they were old enough and large enough to breed, 
else winter them still another season and sell them 
as dairy heifers in the Spring, when they are about 
to calve with their first calves at three years of age. 
This fact is significant; the problem facing the 
Eastern farmer is that of producing more of the 
products that he uses oil his own farm. A few years 
ago, practically every farmer in New Jersey fattened 
a few feeders, even though they were only dairy 
cows or steers. Now lie not only buys his milch 
cows, but a large proportion of the feed that he gives 
them. The home-grown heifer calf out of a sire and 
dam whose record for producion and reproduction is 
above the average is a much safer medium to feed 
home-grown products to than is the animal that is 
picked up from the drover and fed purchased food 
stuffs that contain so-called elements that the calves 
cannot find. f. c. minkler. 
New Jersey Station. 
It. N.-Y.—Prof. Minkler here touches on a problem 
we have often referred to—a market for Eastern 
beef. 
ABOUT THE DEVON CATTLE. 
T is no more than right that the most domesti¬ 
cated cattle should have a picture in The It. N.-Y., 
and a statement as to their worth. The Devon 
type is shown in the statues of Egypt, illustrated in 
National Ideographic Magazine, and presumably the 
Devon cattle have been under the care of the milk¬ 
maids for 3,000 years or more. I find that the bulls 
are as tame and gentle as the cows, and they are 
very intelligent, so that they are used largely for 
oxen. I visited Dr. Buell’s farm and saw about 70 
superb Devons; all his surplus males were made 
oxen and trained and sold. The Devon herd books 
and the New York Experiment Station give the tests 
for the milk, and it is the richest in casein, and is 
above the average in fat I find that my Devons 
(registered) keep up their milk flow long after calv¬ 
ing, and do not as my Jerseys did, give a bountiful 
flow at first and then go down to almost nothing. I 
haven’t as yet kept a 
daily measurement of 
the amounts of milk 
given by my cows, but 
Dr. Morris, (President 
of the Devon Cattle 
Club) has, and he finds 
that the Devons are not 
at all at a disadvantage 
in comparison with 
other breeds of cattle. 
I am breeding the dairy 
type, so my animals are' 
smaller than the usual 
beef-bred Devons, but, 
as a matter of taste I 
prefer a small cow; in 
proportion to their size 
with the others they 
give more milk, the 
mother of the mother of 
my herd was a 20-quart 
cow, so the owner, I'., J. 
Wightman, wrote me; 
at any rate without the 
trouble of daily weigh¬ 
ing or measuring the 
milk I am quite satis¬ 
fied with their yield. 
The superb appear¬ 
ance of these Devons as 
lawn or pasture orna¬ 
ments cannot be ex¬ 
celled by any other 
breed; rich red in color, 
with large, branching white horns, large, beautiful 
eyes, and a placid disposition that adds to tlieir 
beauty. They just suit a landscape. The milk is the 
finest for drinking, it having none of that oily 
flavor so objectionable in the Jersey milk. In fact, 
my daughter, then a young child of nine, didn’t like 
the flavor of the Jersey milk on account of its oili¬ 
ness, and I read of the Devon milk being tiie best 
for children and invalids because of the better pro¬ 
portions of the food nutrients, consequently the De¬ 
vons are here and are prime favorites. The mother 
of the herd, now 11 years old, is said by many to Ik* 
the finest cow they have seen and the finest in the 
county. The bulls I have had are all gentle, as gen¬ 
tle as the females; I haven’t put a ring in the nose, 
only the same rope that ties the cows to tie them, 
and that is a comfort, for some of my neighbors with 
Jersey, Holstein and Dexter bulls find them very 
cross, and some are positively dangerous. Two 
neighbors were killed by their own bulls. 
