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Show ! CATTLE FEEDERS MUST EXERCISE MORE ' CAUTION THIS WINTER THAN FORMERLY I ' 7 " , - T- V- - - -. Less Risk in Good Than Plain Cattle for Average Man. obtain the special information available avail-able from his state agricultural college and experiment station, and from the United States department of agriculture. agricul-ture. t System Is Guessing. The whole matter is much of a guess, as everybody admits. But there is a good deal of system, not to say science, in good guessing. The man who guesses how many beans are contained in a half-gallon jar does not simply say, "Well, I guess there are 409,873 beans in that jar." He ascertains, as nearly as he -cat , how many beans fill a cubic inch of ,ace and then he computes com-putes the cubic contents of a half-gallon jar. With the variation in sizes of beans, thickness of glass and other things, it is still enough of a guess, but the guesser is not going it absolutely blind. The farmer whose profits for the year depend largely on how he comes out on. the cattle he feeds should be at least as systematic a guesser as the fellow who taies a gamble on a jar of beans. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) Are you going to feed any cattle this winter? If so, what kind of feed are you going to use? And what kind of cattle are you going to feed? Those questions have been asked persistently, one feeder of another, for the past several months wherever cattle cat-tle are commonly fed in the United States. Now the time has arrived for filling the feeding i.ots and the question ques-tion is more insistent than ever. It used to be the common practice, when com was high in price, to feed more roughage. If corn was low, the feeder could afford to feed it in larger quantities over a longer period. If he was going to feed corn in considerable quantities over a long period, he was disposed to buy high-class cattle. If corn was high and the feeder felt that he had to use a larger proportion of roughage, he was disposed to buy plainer, thinner cattle. A Day of New Rules. But just now all the old rules are upset. Feeders, in common with every- body else, are living in a new world just as truly a new world as if the things seen by the zealot of Patmos had come to pass. Corn is high un-precedentedly un-precedentedly high compared to pre-,var pre-,var prices. The old rule would be 'Feed more rough stuff." But roughage rough-age also is high unprecedentedly so. What is to be done about it? The United States department of agriculture agrees, with the expression af many experienced feeders that, largely, it is a matter of each man!s guessing for himself. Still the department depart-ment insists that the accumulated knowledge about cattle feeding is worth a great deal and that it can be applied even under the present disturbed dis-turbed conditions by practically every feeder. The necessities of the situation situa-tion will vary with different localities and with different individuals in the same locality. It is a time, the department depart-ment experts believe, when no man should fail to avail himself of the help of the county agent and experienced feeders in determining what is best to do under particular conditions. Some of the foundation facts of feeding, of course, are unchanged. It is still true, as It always has been, that the soil fertility of a grain farm is almost al-most certain to be depleted unless a considerable part of the crop is fed to live stock and the fertility value returned to the fields. Feeding, after all, is ordinarily a part of a balanced agriculture, and its profits or losses cannot be exactly figured on the basis of money received for finished cattle though every rnan, of course, should take all precautions reasonably possible pos-sible to put the balance on the right side of the ledger for the single operation. opera-tion. Feeding Period Shorter. The new elements are variously applicable ap-plicable to different sections and to different individuals. At least one of them, however, is pretty general. The feeding period will have to be shorter than used to be considered desirable. The maximum period that most feeders feed-ers can contemplate this year is said lo be 150 days but preferably considerably consider-ably less. That means, necessarily, that most feeders cannot afford to "feed to a finish." It has been realized for a long time that every pound of weight put on at the end of a finishing finish-ing period costs more than a pound put on earlier in the process. When every pound put on at any stage ot the process is costing, as the feeder feels, too much, the old six to eight months period of feeding is in the discard. dis-card. It may come into play again on a new deal, but not while the cards are distributed as they are at present. It used to be standard advice that only animals of good quality should be used, as they sell for a higher price and dress a higher percentage of beef. The 'department experts still say that the average feeder is taking less chance on a good steer than on a plainer plain-er one, but there are many feeders, especially the inexperienced, whom they advise to use the plainer kind. It just about sifts down to this expression expres-sion from an old, experienced feeder: "A policy that is practical and profitable profit-able for one feeder may be wholly impracticable im-practicable for another. Because one man buys only top feeders and feeds to a finish is no evidence that he is a better cattle man that: his neighbor who buys a lower grade of cattle and does not feed to a finish." And that means, again, that every feeder is advised ad-vised to analyze his own situation with the greatest care that he can give to it, that he avail himself of whatever j uld the county agent can give, that he |
