Six Cent Beef Cattle

Henry W allace says m rne Momesteaü : "Long ago, when we went to school in a log school house, chinked and daubed, and sat on a slab, turned bark side down f or a bench, and stood in awe of the birch rods that lay on nails jnst above the master's desk, it used to be a maxim 'two rimes three are six' and the 'half of sis is three.' Applying this maxirn, if it be a true one our readers will please ask their children if it is taught in the schools for truth now), to the cattle business, it would seem as if two cattle of a given weight selling at three cents per pound would bring no more than one of the same weight se'ling at six, and it would therefore seem as if it would be to the farmer's interest to keep half the ntunber of cattle and sell only six cent steers. If it should be still f urther discovered that a high grade steer would make this weight in a year less time and save a year's keep, it would seem as if it were utter f olly to bother with a three cent steer. If on still f urther investigation it should be fonnd that this is possible and is done by the best farmers year after year, in what are known as the bine grass sections of the west, while ü cannot be done on the range sections, il would seem the highest mark of wisdom to let the range people grow the three cent steers and the blue grass people grow only six cent. It depends mainly on whether we were taught a lie in thai O.& school house or were taught the truth. We say mainly, because Captain A. P. Petrie, of New Windsor, Ills., writes us as follows: 'It seems to me that if the corn and blue grass belt of Illinois anc Iowa cannot make a success of raising good beef to supply the markete of the irorivï no OLtier place neea try. ThediffiCTÜty seems to be in getting the common farmer to onderstand the difference between cattle that will bring six cents per pound and those that bring three. They certainly see the trouble, but will not apply the remedy.' So, after all, the old mama may have been true, and is stil] trae, and the difficulty lies in the f act that farmers do no not onderstand that they can, if they will, grow the six cent cattle by getting the right kind of blood, thoroughbred sires all the time, and taking the proper care of them. If this be so, then all hands to work to preach the gospel of six cent cattle and produce it. It can be done, is . done, and we can all name the men that can do it and are doingit. Let the motto, 'Fewer cattle and better,' be written on every barndoor."