OCR Text |
Show when only two to three months old." This quotation from Farmer's Bulletin Bul-letin 688 of the department means that unless the farmer has unlimited cheap feeds, it is usually more profitable profit-able to market the dairy or dual-purpose calves than to attempt to raise them, even though some of them might make good steers. While many deplore this heavy slaughterof calves, and legislation against it has been urged, the consumers demand must be met. While the number of cattle has decreased, de-creased, the demand for meat has naturally na-turally grown until not only have the exports nearly ceased, but the packers, pack-ers, that they may provide cheaper meat, are now buying many cattle that were formerly fed. The farmers who formerly bought nearly finished cattle as feeders have been compelled to pay higher prices for such cattle or to take thinner animals. The cattle-feeding business has changed greatly during recent years. Formerly steers from 4 tc 6 years of age were fed in large numbers on commercial feed near granaries or mills, or upon large farms where only the roughage was grown, and the cattle cat-tle were kept on full feed for six months or longer. This method became be-came too expensive, so feeding is now conducted upon farms as a means of marketing farm products by converting convert-ing them into beef, while manure produced is utilized as a by-product for maintaining ferility. Demand For Veal Rapidly Increasing. "The demand for veal has increased rapidly, and not only are the surplus dairy calves slaughtered but thousands thous-ands of beef calves as well, until a calve will now sell for from $8 to $12 |