Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1859 — Farmer's Department. [ARTICLE]

Farmer's Department.

CONDUCTED by an agriculturist. ... a St KHt/iNG IN JANPEU MHATJ. In the Gazette of the 4th inst., was an article, in which was taken a general view of the extent and resources of Jasper county* closing with an intimation that it might be followed by a general inquiry into the experiments and success of the various branches of industry which have latterly engrossed the care of husbandmen here. We open this inquiry with reference to grazing. Beef cattle have commanded the attention and capital of farmers to a greater extent than any other stock in-this branch of rurul lubor. Horses, swine, sheep, mules and asses have e ch occupieJ more or less time, but more capital has been devoted to cattle than to either of the others. Dairies, except witii a very few farmers have been a secondary object. Butter-mak-ing has not been made a serious branch of business. No attention fins been pai lto it, except by families for private use, or to supply the limited trade with the villages of the

county, and even this has been very inconsiderable, because almost every villager keeps a cow during_the summer season. There has not yet been any general .system of cattle raising adopted front deliberate or scientific trial, by farmers .of this countyEach individual has acted upon the scheme suggested by his own judgment or fancy, or such as the state of improvement or the natural features of his own particular location has afforded, or the impervious necessity of the times, or his own particular case, has dictated. Numerous breeds of cattle have been raised in the c unty. Herds have been purchased abroad and raised or fatted here. But little or no attention has been given to the fineness or firmness of the texture of the beef, the color of the flesh, or the odor or flavor of the meat, or the peculiar frame of the animal, but that breed would undoubtedly receive the preference, Which will attain the greatest weight of carcass in the shortest time, and with the least labor, and, what is of not less importance, they should be a hardy variety, able to stand the greatest degree of cold and extreme exposure in winter, on inferior food, without shelter. In selling, the practice has been to sell for so much per hundred pounds, live weight. Drovers have offered so much per hundred and raisers have accepted the bid, and driven their cattle from the grass on to the scales, or themselves taken them to market where the same or similar result, was achieved. A few only have packed the beef of their own raising or even of fattening and where any have had it packed on their own account, it has generally been done at some larger towns out of the county, at Lafayette, Chicago or some other city, the butcher furnishing barrels, salt, cutting the meat and packing it, and receiving the hide, head, shanks and tallow for his share, the drover retaining only the net quarters for market, salted in the barrels, furnished by the butcher. In this case the drover trust, of course, await the action of the market before he can realize. In some instances advances are jnade by 1 consignees. But whatever may have been the final arrangements of drovers and pack* ers, cattle have always commanded cash in hand to cattle growers and fatteners.. There has been but little competition ii; the county among buyers, and drovers have usually given their own prices. The general or prevalent practice in raising cattle has been, either to keep breeding cows and let the calves run with them on the opep prairies in summer, throwing the herd a handful of salt once or twice a week, and taking care, either by employing a herdsman, or by occasional supervision, that they i.'o not wander from their proper range. This is the only expense during seven and a half months in the year, from the middle of April to December. A very few, if any, calves are ever slaughtered in Jasper county for their veal. Tiiose persons who do not wish to winter their calves, find a market for them among their neighbors in the fall, at from four to six dollars per head. Alter the grass of th*; prairies has been killed down by the frosts of autumn, the calves are generally separated from the larger cattle and kept up in an enclosure, in some part of which is an open shed, built of logs or rails and covered with a pile of straw or coating of prairie hay, a: d there fed on prairie hay with a small daily allowance ot ears of Indian corn or meal. Some keep them on corn fodder which has been cut and shocked up in the fall, or turn them into stock-fields, i. e., fields where the ears of corn has been gathered off and the stalks leit standing a« they grew in summer, or more recently, since tame grass -s have been cultivated, fed them, a portion of the winter, on timothy, bluegrass or clover. In some cases, calves are exposed throughout the winter to all changes of w-eather, sunshine, sleety rains, snow storms and intense cold, with no other shelter beside what is afforded by a clump of brush or glade of timber. It is not surprising that with such care, fir, rather, such neglect, many calves perish and die before the end of the first winter. Others, that finally survive, get on the “lift,” or have the “hollow-horn,” or “wolf,” or some other disease, the resu t of starvation and exposure. Very few if any calves in this county, are ever kept in a thriving, much less in a fa’ condition during the first winter they are kepi. But as soon as spring opens they are again turned out upon the prairies. Here, in a few weeks, their whole appearance is changed. The old hair falls off and is replaced by a new and smooth coat. In a short time they become fat, and before the ensuing fall, they usually attain the size of two year old stock that is raised in timbered lands, and in this condition they are brought to another winter, in which they

fare no better than during the first. They are now kept without shelter—many of them without grain—and fed on prairie hay, which costs one dollar and fifty cents a ton in the stack. It is seldom that any of them die 'during the second winter, although it would appear strange to a New England farmer that any of them should live through. Heifers, in calf at this age, and most of them come in at two years old, need- som grain to do well, especially where they come in early, but steers and other stock, if they have only enough course feed, get through without dificulty. Early in the succeeding summer and fall the two-year-olds «rt- ready for market. The average value for such cal’!e, the last four or five years, has been from sls to sl7 a head in the spring, and from two and threefourth to three dollars a hundred pounds, live weight, in the summer and fall. Notwithstanding the loss of some calves, and some older cattle the last two hard winters, stock raising has been considered profitable, and some have realized handsome fortunes from it. To make stock raising a rich business, requires a moderate capital and considerable labor. Our cattle are killed too~y‘oung. None ought t > be slaughtered before., they ure four or five years old, and they would be still more profitable if kept until they are six years old and kept in a fattening condition for the last eighteen mo .ths before they are slaughtered. Such cattle would fetch in the eastern markets front SIOO to $l3O per head. II cattle should be kept to this age and in the manner indicated, there cannot be a qtiestion.about the profit to the farmer. They are so kept in England and France, and many in the eastern States of this Union, and vast fortunes are amassed,in the business, and why not here? It is irue manual labor and the care of feeding them in winter costs more here than in those countries. But we do not require the outlay for shelter nor do we teed so long in winter, while the cost of feed with “8 bears no comparison with the cost of feed in thosd States, and our cattle will with less care, of the same breeds,grow large.- in five years than theirs will in seven. The advantages are undoubtedly with US. Why should we not reap the benefits? Again,our cattle, ofthe same stock, breed much faster than theirs. Our heifers come in at two years old generally, theirs, seldom if ever until three, many not till four. Nor have they the least advantage in the delay, because the calves raised from our heifers make as-'good cattle at four years of age as those dropped from older cows, and their growth is not retarded nor their lives shortened by this early maturity. At this rate of increase with us, the stock from fi.ty cows, amounts to seven hundred head-in six years, if none die or are sold, which, at an average of twenty dollars per head for large and small cattle, is fourleat thousand dollars, at seventeen dollars, per j head is near twelve th- usand dollars. That I is : f none were sold ti.l the end of six years, and then all sold at once; they will bring twe.ve thousand dollars, estimating them at the prices here during the last four or five years. Fifty cows may be purchased in the spring, at twenty dollars a head, for one thousand dollars, and with this capital a man, acquainted with our climate may safely commence this business. The interest of the money and the cost of the feed for six years will not be above two thousand dollars more, and the net increase will be nine thousand dollars or fifteen hundred dollars a year. These estimates are based upon the lowest data of the p st four years, and are only an approximate criterion of what has been done not of what may be done. If better care was taken of cattle in this county a much larger per cent, could be realized. For if cattle were sheltered in winter, and kept in better condition, they will weigh more at three, than they do now at four years of age, and the grower will realize as much from a stock of cattle in three years as he will now with the usual attention in four years. It requires labor to cut and stack hay for a large herd of cattle*- especially when done by hand. But everc?man with a large stock of cattle can afford to work machinery for mowing and raking, which economizes both hard labor and time, and prepares the hay at the right season and to the best advantage. Indeed he cannot afford to do without machinery. For the past four years the seasons have been irregular, the summers too wet or too dry, and the winters uncommonly severe and much beyond their usual length—many cattle have died late in spring, when feed was spent, from the mere improvidence o farmers. Farmers could not foresee this, and did net provide for it. But a prudent fore-

I cast, with the past experience, will doubtless impress them with this lesson, that it is better to summer over hay than to loose cattle bv starvation in the spring, after having been at me expense of keeping them through the winter. It will be observed that in this article, it has been stated what is or may be done at cattle raising with the attention usually devoted to it in past years in this county. We intend to resume this subject at another Mine.