The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1896-05-02
Paragraphs Pertinent or Other.
wise.
EDITOR Times:

he bad completed the job and went
round among the butchers of st. Paul
and Minneapolis to find purchasers at
fat price, 10 and behold they the pur-
chasers did not materialize. The but
cheers would give him no greater price
for these choice fed lambs fattened at
the dainty table of an agricultural col
lege, than they would for just An ordi-
nary sheep that bad rustled for its grub
on the naked farm.
So the Professor grows indignant, and
writes two columns of newspaper arti-
Gle about it, and larrups the ST. Paul
and Minneapolis butchers, and ends by
shipping his fat lambs to Chicago, where
he after deducting freight and commits
slons gets no profit, but merely the
glory of having scientifically fed one
hundred lambs. The ration dealt out
to them is particularly described so that
all ignorant farmers who may wish 10
ape the professor can feed their lamb if
they have got any in similar manner.
For one we are not at all surprised
l.
This fact has long been known to the
ordinary farmer, and by ordinary |
mean the farmer who lives off his farm
and does not have an income from some
other business to pay his bills with, that
this breeding of high grade stock and
the fattening of such upon the theory
that their quality is going to make him
some money is humbug.
The writer of this article tried once
on time a similar experiment to this
one of the Professors. | was deluded
and deceived into making the expert
ment by reading, and unfortunately for
myself believing, that all farmer has
to do to make money in stock raising is
to improve the breed and having done
this, then procure some oil cake just as
Jim Hill does on his fancy farm, feed it
wisely and then having made some
beautiful fat steers invite in butchers
and buyers to divide with one the
profits. | had in one par ticular year,
fatted, of my own raising twenty high
grade steers. They were indeed beau
ties and invited some st. Paul buyers
to come and see them confident that |
was on the threshold of a wonderful
sale
Well, the buyer came, looked them
oyer carefully and critically, pro-
nounced them beautiful, but to my as
constituent informed me that he could
not owing to conditions pertaining to
the twin city markets pay me any high
er price for these cattle than he could
for the ordinary scrub steer of the To-
cal market These cattle, he wisely in
formed me, you should send to Chicago
where you will get price somewhere
near TO their real value was OF course
somewhat disappointed but before this
buyer from the Twin Cities left me he
discovered an old bull on the premises
turned out to live or die as luck might
have it and asked me my price. Now
as this masculine representative of
bloOded stock had been purchased by
me of Bill King in bis palmy days of
cattle breeding for three hundred and
fifty dollars and as | had become in due
time the owner of az fine herd of high
grade short horns there was at that
time IN Southern Minnesota, and as the
old bull was really very old. and trifle
sick, | did the fair thing, | named
twenty-five dollars as my price, and it
was accepted instanter.
He would weigh just about 22OO
pounds, was scraggy, tough, grizzly
lean old customer, and be was taken to
st. Paul to fit certain conditions there
in regard to meat which this butcher
and buyer seemed to understand
The twenty high grade fat steers, l
then sent to Chicago, and got no more
for them there after paying expenses
than my neighbor Ans. Bartlett got for
half dozen well fed scrubs sent to
Chicago at the same time.
| frankly confess that about those
days | got my eyes well opened in re-
gard to cattle raising for market.
Prof. Shaw in his article in regard to
his lamb business SAYS, eff it be the
duty of the writer to encourage the
farmers to grow lean and light meat the
duty will be easily performed. But l
will still labor to have farmers grow
good meat since there is no profit in
growing any other kind"
And right here comes in the applica-
ton Of all this to wit: that more than
nine-tenths of all this wise talk to farm
ers by professors of agriculture, and
railway managers like Jim Hill, is I'M
adulterated humbug.
Take away from Hill his railway;
strip him of his wealth that he can now
waste if he chooses, in amateur farm
ing, and let him try to get living by
cattle raising alone in Minnesota, and
in two years instead of riding around
the country in palace car, he would
be patching his trousers made of stolen
bags, by filling the holes in them with
wisps Of hay, to keep out the in
clemency of the weather.
| shall never forget a remark once
made to me by Otto Kaupf, of Blue
Earth City, bearing upon this subject.
At the time everybody almost was en-
gagged directly or indirectly in farming
and so when | at my first meeting with
Mr.. X. inquired of him if he like the
rest of US was running farm, his reply
stuck TO my memory:-"No, Holley,
have not got farm. The fact is my
other business is not lucrative enough
to justify my having one"
The truth is undeniably this, that
these people who talk the most gibly
about how farmers should do, and what
they should do, know very little of the
real actual struggle to make ends meet
on farm. The average farmer has no
outside lucrative business on which he