Show the T he livestock liveston ck situation by J A reports of 0 numbers of cattle on feed la in california and arizona state that tha t while there is a general decrease of cattle in teed feed lots as compared to last year more I 1 0 small mall operators are feeding cattle this indicates that there billere Is a trend on the part of farmers to mark market etmore more of their feed through cattle and use the ferll zer for building up their soil jt it has ha always seemed tl ti me that should be more farmers and owners of irrigated land feeding cattle as a means of selling their train and roughage rouf hage the use of trench silos is enabling lingmann many ranchers to put up sll oil age economically dry lariveo fari veO are en combinations of oats or barley and vetch in the valleys of the southwest begera silage Is coming more into the picture some olour af our most successful california feeders are raising corn of the kind that gave the corn belt its name yields of as much ns as 60 to 80 bushels per acre are reported and the usual practice is to shuck some of the corn for grain and and 6 ensile beahe the rest with the stal stalks silage i la especially valuable in preventing off feed periods among cattle in feed lots many of f the large commercial feed yards la in california use a mixture of barley straw with molasses and cottonseed hulls for the sole roughage this suggests that iraln farmers by grinding their straw and mixing it with molas tea sea could use it as the chief roughage in fattening cattle one of the reasons tor fir the increase in feeding on the part of small ranchers has been the vs un dependability of cash crops prices a of hay and grain have been comparatively low during the past year and prospects tor for next year show even larger supplies of feed grains and hay farmers raising tash ash crops generally have been disappointed with the prices received during the past few years when one considers coc elders the uncertainty of raising cash crops the market tor for which fluctuates rapidly and unpredictably the element of nance chance in cattle feeding by comparison of course course in feeding cattle it Is the 1116 return over a period of years that counts the man operating a small irrigated farm can set up a regular program of fattening so many cattle each year and follow that tI through trough with me little deviation if marle marketing eting his feed through cattle leaves no return over the cash value alue of the feed except the fertilizer obtained the farmer is still better off than he would have been to have hac sold his feed on the whole farmers find and ranchers who ho have been feeding cattle tor for the past few years have averaged a good profit above the vate value of their feeds and the for fer obtained feeding cattle gives them two chances when feed Is cheap they can make money on their cattle feeding and when it Is high their farming operations erat ions show a profit it Is to be hoped and expected that the next few years tears will see more cattle fed by those who raise the feed |