STATE CONVENTION—CORN RAISING. 
215 
the shock. The large shocks will stand better, and the stalks 
will be more protected from the weather. 
I do not believe it pays to husk corn more than enough to feed 
teams, much less to shell and grind. Corn may be fed to stock 
with more profit than any other way it can be disposed of. With 
good three or four year old steers, the corn can be fed without 
husking; if old cattle, they would not do as well; but no man 
can afford to have old cattle ; he should dispose of them before they 
are old. 
When we have mixed farming—raising grain, hay and corn— 
there would be no excuse for not making the stock comfortable. 
With good bedding and good protection from storms, together 
with the straw, from which cattle and sheep will pick a large 
amount of feed, and corn with a little hay, cattle can be made fat 
during winter, ready for the high price that can usually be ob¬ 
tained in April or perhaps in March, and then, too, it enables one 
to make the straw and coarse feed into manure, a necessity in suc¬ 
cessful farming in this or any other state. 
Hogs should follow after the cattle, at least one hog for each 
steer, and they will become fat from the droppings. If the cattle 
are stabled (a matter of economy), the hogs should have access to 
the stable after the cattle are turned out before the droppings be¬ 
come frozen. Good, warm bedding of straw for the cattle to lie 
on, which will become mixed with the droppings, and thereby com¬ 
posted and made into the best of manure, is important. Straw 
should be scattered daily over the yard, not only because it will be 
convenient for the stock to pick over, but that it may be made into 
manure. The prudent farmer will use all his available means to 
maintain the fertility of his soil by returning to it an equivalent 
for what he has taken from it. 
The hogs, too, should have a good comfortable place to sleep, 
not in the manure heap, not in the side of the straw stack or other 
cold place where they will all pile up, but a shed high enough for 
a man to walk in, and covered over thick with straw, so they will 
be warm. Sftnply make your hog as warm and comfortable as you 
would make yourself, only let his bed be straw instead of wool. 
Finally, the whole secret of success in feeding cattle and hogs is 
summed up in three words, make them comfortable. 
