Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1903-04-29
Baby Beef.

Editor of the Manchester Democrat:
Ii not encroaching on valuable space,
please insert the following: Ny motive
IN writing this letter is to gain infor-
nation; to get facts, not fictfons, with
no
parade what am doing only in an ex
planatory way.
very much dislike to be working
along certain lines and have results over
much below what might be considered
a standard or what should be expected.
My results along the baby beef line
have not been as flattering as some l
read of, particularly the letter headed,
"Does it pay to raise calves" on page
296 Farmers Tribune, April 9th, 1903
issue.
Iappreciate the force of his argument
regarding some things while others /
question. Some of the main points in
the Tribune letter briefly stated, are
these: A COW will produce twenty tons
of manure in year. The growth of a
calf where it has all its mothers milk
is three pounds day for the first three
months and for the next six months two
and one-hslf pounds when getting all
its mothers milk with no grain-only
grass, SO when 1t is nine months old
1t will weigh 800 pounds. On 9
one hundred and sixty acre farm,
one half of 1t kept in grass and clover,
forty acres acres of 1t in corn, which
should yield 240O bushels valued at 40
cents per bushel and keep the other
for his teams and making his living.
On the one hundred and sixty acre
farm he keeps 80 COWS and raises
his calves as previously mentioned.
When calves are nine months old he
feeds them for six months and gets an
average gain of 450 pounds at cost, in
Guiding clover hay and grain, of S279O,
and says you will make lots of money,
and you will get it so easily it will be
like getting it from home. He
claims the thirty calves after be-
ing fed will be worth $l973 10 and there
would still be over $1,000 Of grain
on the farm, making about $4,000
returns for the year on the farm. He
claims this estimate is made on
common scrub cattle, but with high
grade beef type calves these returns car
be increased from 25 to 40 per cent.
My dear sir, If there is no limit to q
fertile imagination there should be to
results. Such glowing results are enough
to make the experienced baby beef
producers smile, the erratic halt lonf
enough to let calf suck and the anna
ture stockman see millions looming u,
in the future.
With courtesy ] ask, to some extent
is such an impractical theory emanat
| ing from the facil pen of some cit,
farmer, who never raised calf or milk
ed COW or is IL actully being demon.
4 strated in the state of Iowa.
4 Do you know man in Iowa, o
any where else as to to that matter
owning 100 acres of land and getting
\ $4,000 returns when handled as tn,
Tribune writer describes. If 70,
do l feel like rendering my service
gratuitously for year to learn tn
trick in the trade. Our frien,
further says, in fact we mus
raise calves or 60 into soil bankruptcy
! l don't believe it. With proper rotation
good cultivation, clover and horses, hog
) and sheep to consume what the farr
produces will conserve and in
t crease its fertility.
To view the question from the stand
( point Of soil fertility, l am unable to Sc
I why 1t makes any difference wheth,
. one raises his calves, buys them OF SON
one gives them to him. so long as
i keeps cattle enough to utilize his feed
! Every up TO date farmer. who is 10