that if there is any more money to be made in raising Shorthorns than dairy cattle, of course we as Wisconsin farmers ought to embrace it. It is well to figure on these matters, and see if we can safely make a change. We have learned to-day that a three-year old steer, having had the proceeds of a cow three years, will sell for five or five and one-half cents a pound. It costs as much to keep a growing yearling steer as to keep a dairy cow, and I think a little more. It costs a little more to keep a two year old, and still more to keep a three year old of these heavy steers that will sell for ninety dollars. Now what does it cost a dairyman to change his business and go to raising steers for beef? Dairymen know very well-those that have been in the business a long time that the average proceeds of a cow is from forty to fifty dollars. A good many are ashamed that it does not go over fifty dollars a cow. Here, then, are the avails of three years put into a four year old steer, and you get eighty dollars for the steer, and you miss getting one hundred and fifty dollars for the proceeds of your butter. That is about the result of changing the business.

Mr. Glenn Take the dairy cattle of the country through Wisconsin; I would like to know if they yield that profit that you speak of for the year.

Mr. Hiram Smith - No, sir; but I would ask if the steers through the country will average ninety dollars? [Laughter and applause.]

This is an important question, and I am glad it has come up, and it needs a thorough discussion. It is an important matter for the people of Wisconsin to change from one important branch to another.

Now, then, about the general results. Let us look at the price of land where four year old steers are raised. Look at the price of land where the majority of dairy products are raised. In Herkimer county and Oneida county, New York, nearly all the land that has for forty or fifty years been devoted to the dairy interest is worth one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. Down in Egypt, I suppose, they would hardly get fifty. Now there is some prac tical reason why this condition of things exists. It is the avails of

the proceeds that determines the price of the land

of the net

proceeds. Now, then, I admit that if he puts his face westward,

his argument is a good one.

can be produced at a profit. have too sharp competition. sas can beat us to death.

Take the beef upon land where beef

That is not in Wisconsin. We People in northern Texas and Kan

Take, for instance, a farm anywhere in Wisconsin, assessed, we will say, eight thousand dollars, and the cattle, team and tools two thousand, netting in the aggregate assessment ten thousand dollars. The farmer is living on the proceeds of the increase of this two thousand dollars worth of other property. His land is a fixture. Now you take the assessment in Kansas, Colorado, northern Texas, and how would the result of the assessment be there? He would be assessed ten thousand dollars, we will say, if that was his capital, and what does it consist of? It would be about two thousand dollars for the homestead, tools and implements, and eight thousand dollars worth of cattle. This man at the west, then, is living upon the avails and increase and growth of eight thousand dollars, and we blindly try to run competition against him with our two thousand dollars worth of cattle.

That is the condition of things exactly. Producing dairy products has been sustained upon land worth one hundred and fifty dollars an acre, and we are protected by the organizations of those that rule the market upon these products upon high priced land. To put our land in Wisconsin, worth sixty to seventy dollars an acre, to producing beef would be ruinous at once. The receipts from land would be worth one-half less than the receipts from the dairy. For instance, a man has a two hundred acre farm. He can keep fifty cows, and the receipts will be three thousand dollars. Now let him turn his attention to raising beef cattle. He will have twenty-five cows we will say; perhaps twenty-five yearlings, twenty-five two year olds, and if he sells them at three, he has got seventy-five head of cattle on his farm. He has got only twenty-five to sell, and the twenty-five steers won't bring as much as the proceeds of the dairy. But I have overestimated it. He can't start in with twenty-five cows. He must start in with about eighteen or twenty, if he keeps all his cattle on his farm.

Of course if a man can buy and speculate, that is another thing. I have no doubt a great deal of money has been made by selling high priced stock, but the question is, will the farm produce enough so that the receipts will equal the receipts from the dairy? I take the ground that the sales of the steers would not equal the sales from the dairy, the feed being about the same. It looks to me like a plain case.

Col. Judy I would like to answer some of the objections if I can intelligently. These are matters of vital importance to this people. We are all interested in it, and if Short-horns are not a good thing, men ought not to have them. If they are a good thing, they ought to have them.

I readily agree with my friend Mr. Smith, that he cannot begin to compete with the common cattle of this country, as far as beef is concerned, with these men on the plains, but fortunately there has been a market opened recently that requires just the kind of cattle that we on this land of ours are capable of raising; and instead of having two hundred head of cattle, as our people used to in Illinois, we will only have two car loads, or thirty head, and put them off at thirty months old weighing sixteen hundred pounds each, and almost every bit of that after the first year made on a cheap feed-blue grass, timothy and clover-and then you have got it all right, and if you can't make some money out of it I am terribly fooled. Our people do it in doing just as I have indicated. Those that were feeding sometimes hundreds are now feeding only a few car loads. They keep their land in grass, and the consequence is their land is improving very rapidly. This new market gives us a different class of customers, and it requires a different kind of beef to supply it. If you attended the fat stock shows in Chicago the last two years you saw yearlings sell for twenty-six dollars per head. They were twenty months old. Gen. Gillette's cattle that were there were not two years old, but they weighed over sixteen hundred pounds. Of course they were a little better kept than ordinary. What he has done any man can do.

Now another thing in regard to the cow business. You charge the steers up right straight along until they are two and a half or

three years old. How much milk do you get out of an animal before it gets to be two and a half or three years old?

Mr. Hiram Smith-Charge for the product of the farm. Keep all you can on two hundred acres. You have fifteen cows, fifteen yearlings, fifteen two-year-olds, and fifteen three-year-olds. Can you keep any more than that on two hundred acres?

Colonel Judy - Yes, sir. I can on mine. I have got a piece of land of ninety acres that three years in succession, six months of the year, I ran from ninety-four to a hundred head of cattle. They did well and fattened. Now, mind you, that will not do every time, but that did it. It was freshly sowed the second year with red clover and timothy.

Colonel Judy
A voice

Colonel Judy

No, sir. I didn't say that.

Hiram Smith - I am talking about keeping cattle a year.

Colonel Judy I will tell you what we allowed; two acres to the animal. That will take them well through. That is about the allowance that our men make.

Hiram Smith-There is no record of any such good farming. Col. Judy-Well, make one.

Hiram Smith-We have no such record, that two acres will keep an animal. It comes near three. Now, on common Wisconsin land sixty head of cattle to two hundred acres would be heavy. Selling fifteen each year, even at a hundred dollars a head, he gets fifteen hundred dollars as the avails of his farm. Now, then, a dairyman that would keep fifty cows upon such a farm as that, that would come out with fifteen hundred dollars after his hired help was paid, would not think he had done any great things. Therefore, I say we can't make the change. A two hundred acre farm, with fifty cows well kept and intelligently managed, would produce three thousand dollars.

Col. Judy - How much hired help would a man require to take care of the cattle?

Hiram Smith-Five hired men in the summer and two hired men in the winter.

Col. Judy-In the other system would he not need hired help?

Hiram Smith I should think so. I don't know as cattle would clean out their stables and cut their own feed.

Col. Judy These cattle never saw the inside of a stable. Hiram Smith-They would hardly fetch ninety dollars in the northern part of Wisconsin if they never had seen a stable. You would have hides enough to make a stable. We are talking about things as they exist in this country. If we are preaching doctrine that is not adapted to this latitude we had better quit it.

Mr. Eastman-There seems to be one thing that has been for gotten in this discussion. That is in regard to the young animals, the bulls, that are sold before they are a year old. The Messrs. Winslow, of Kankakee, make butter right along and sell their bulls at from five hundred to a thousand dollars. They have over a hundred head of Short-horns.

A voice-Were the bulls raised on skimmed milk?

Mr. Eastman-Yes, sir. Bulls that took the premium at the State Fair in Illinois.

Col. JudyThese are facts that he is stating to you, as far as the rearing of these cattle are concerned. They have the finest cattle to-day in the United States. They milk their cows right through, and feed their calves skimmed milk and give them a little other feed, and sell their calves for a good price.

Different men have their different modes of managing their business, as you see dairymen have. The great principle that we want to come down to, is attention to the business we are in. Some men might succeed much better at a dairy than they would at raising Short-horns. A man who was inclined to be lazy would do a great deal better with Short-horns. You can get along with a little less care than with the dairy interest. The dairy keeps you pretty close to your business. It is a nice business. I wouldn't want any man to change who was satisfied he

I could do better at it.

Mr. Porter, Waukesha county - I rather like this meeting. It is a kind of a go-as-you-please affair. A little about buildings, a little about barns, a little about sheep, a little about bulls, and now we are hearing a great deal about cattle.