Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 218]

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210 Satisfactory profit from beef production will usually result from one of two courses: The production of animals of fair to good quality at less than the average cost, or producing animals of very high quality, even at comparatively large cost. The latter course is and will be followed by some breeders and feeders; usually men of intelligence, much experience or abundant capital. The great mass of the fat cattle sent to our markets will not be of this class, i t is not wise for many farmers, with their present circumstances, to attempt the production of such cattle. Preparing for market beeves which have been well but cheaply reared and fattened, and which, if not thoroughly ripened or finished, give wholesome, nutritious and palatable beef for the great mass of middle-class consumers, may give larger net profit to many farmers than would attempts with ordinary facilities and little experience to produce beeves of the highest quality. The actual and relative cost of. land, grass, grain, labor, buildings, etc., will properly modify practice. Of recent years the great markets show more uniformity in the number of cattle received at different seasons, and something more of uniformity in the qualities to be found. For some years to come, however, a large number of grass-fed cattle may be expected to be sent to market during the summer and autumn months from the great grazing regions of the west. So far as is practicable, it is wise for feeders on the farms of the older States to send their cattle to market when they will not be in competition with these grass cattle. It is doubtful whether the farmers of Illinois, for instance, can compete with the western cattle without fairly liberal grain feeding. But it also seems true that the once common plan of almost unlimited corn feeding for a year or more to cattle in open fields has ceased to be profitable. The mass of Illinois-bred steers of good quality are marketed at from thirty to forty-two months of age. Steers four years old or more, a few years ago so commonly fed, are becoming more and more rare in the best feeding districts of the State, and as yet comparatively few are slaughtered much before two and a half years. We have not reached the time when what is known as "baby beef" is generally profitable to the producer. There has been a marked depreciation in the selling-price of breeding-cattle of all breeds. Breeders of these, as well as feeders of cattle for beef, have had to more carefully study cost of production than during times of higher prices. In the management of the herds of pure-bred cattle on the University farms, and in the feeding of beef cattle raised or purchased, especial attention has been given to economy of production—much more than to possibilities of production. Some facts and observations from our experience in these attempts to produce breeding and beef cattle of satisfactory quality by simple and comparatively inexpensive methods are submitted:

CALF REARING ON SKIM-MILK.

For four years we reared a score or more of calves each year, using skimmed milk entirely after they were from one to two