Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1910 — RAISING BEEF CATTLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RAISING BEEF CATTLE

Value of Good Pastures and Pure Water In Stock Breeding. Careful attention to pastures has for several reasons been the leading feature of my farming, writes a successful Indiana stock breeder in the American Agriculturist, first, because in the rearing of cattle it is imperative to maintain the breeding cows in robust health, and this can be most surely and economically compassed with outdoor conditions I have never thought exercise as necessary to the health of cows, as some claim, but 1 do think that it is impossible to overestimate the value of nutritious grasses and easy access to pure water The secondsreason it that a greater per cent of the year's food can be obtained with less labor through good pastures thanin any other way. The labor problem is lmf»ortant not only because of the

money involved, but also because of the strain it puis upon human patience and forbearance. By the liberal use of pasture the labor problem is reduced to its Invest terms. r Pasture has peculiar value on a breeding farm because the animals are reared from babyhood, become accustomed to each other and to the pasture and in consequence do their best Conditions might be entirely different where fitting for slaughter was the object of live stock management; then the bringing in of strange animals might mean the introduction of trouble. My object being to have grass as many days in the year as possible, care is taken not to overstock the pasture. It is a mistake that many of us make to believe that we are getting the most from the pasture when we permit it to be eaten off until the blades are but an inch or so hi length and the soil exposed. Another very common error is that land is made more fertile by being pastured.

Those who have studied the subject tell us that the fertility of the land la increased only when concentrated feeds are fed or when top dressed with stable manure. In my own experience no investment in farm machinery has been more thoroughly satisfactory than a manure spreader, and nowhere have the results been as Immediate and as great as when it has been used on pasture land. With the spreader it is possible to distribute as little as four loads to the acre.

ANGUS HEIPERS BROAD BACK.