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iness of yearling cattle and feeder pig production.
Why? Let’s consider first the yearling cattle enterprise.
Many of our farms are simply too small to support an economical cow-herd. Comparatively speaking, just a few years ago a 30-35 beef cow herd was considered a minimum economical unit; today I would guess, based on trends, etc. that this minimum unit is somewhere between 60 and 100;
cows.
A farm that can produce year-, round feed for 30 cows and their replacements could probably sup-j port 60-75 yearlings. Always remember. “Bought right is half; sold.” Thin lightweight (300-3 >0; pounds) feeder calves grading! “good”’ with proper care will double their weight in 11-12 months.. Also you would expect to have 93100 percent of those put-in to be on hand to sell the following fall. By buying “good” grade calves you should up-grade from a fourth to a third of them.
Farmers who have both steers and cows say the latter demand better fences thus more capital is required in this respect. Also a 90 percent calf crop is market from a herd of cows is excellent, but remember you must keep back about 20 percent of the cow herd in replacement heifers. When you stock feeder steer calves the period of child-hood diseases has passed. You don’t have any problems of reproductive diseases.
Then too, the man with 30 cows frequently must buy a bull every 12-18 months in order to breed his yearling replacement heifers.
SOURCES & MARKETS: At both your back and front doors are feeder calf and yearling sales heldin the spring and in the fall. The best in Virginia are in' thfr vicinity. If “bought right” the farmer, could buy in the spring and sell in the fall.
Some of our farms are long on land well suited to pasture production and practically void of land well suited to production of crops. This makes production costs higher per ton of roughage or per -bushel of grain. Also, this type of buyer-producer will have less cap
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