where they pay us a very good net
interest on $10.00 land and $70.00 cows. We probably could sell every
acre that we own at a price which would give us more net money than we
get from the cattle business, but our people consider it a mighty good
back-log to have lands which were almost without value brought up to
that value and to their earning capacity.

I think that if you go into the cattle business you should study very
carefully the possibility of disposing of the calf at weaning time. That
is something you will have to grow to. The Government is authority for
the statement that the economical production of beef is the calf, taken
at weaning time, not allowed to go back, but kept coming in the matter
of feeding, and if this calf is to be taken at that age, you can run
twenty per cent more cows on your range, producing an average of fifteen
per cent more calves, as against developing a steer to the three or four
year old period, in which his individual gain is your revenue in the
matter of a carrying charge. I believe, too, you will find it an economy
to dehorn these calves at branding time. It can be done with practically
no loss of blood. The animal is well in a very short time. I think he
develops better and he certainly sells quicker.

Packers have immense contracts, and if the war continues they must have
lots of tinned beef. On the other hand, if the war stops the world must
stock up again with tinned beef. We know that they expected to pay an
average of at least one cent per pound more for their canners the past
year, but that the great drought has forced so many cattle in, the
owners were very thankful to take what they got and the packers were
forced to their capacity to attempt to handle them in such quantities.
We know that the calf crop of Texas next year will probably show a
decrease of twenty-five per cent, and that if rain comes in time to give
good spring grass that a farmer will pay anywhere from ten to
twenty-five per cent more in Texas than any other part of America. It
would not surprise me at all to see your Florida cattle shippped over to
Texas. We know, too, that next year, instead of the normal number of
cows coming in in the culling process, which find their average market
as canners, it will be the disposition of every ranchman to hold back
cows which would ordinarily go into the culls in order that his ranch
may be brought up sooner to re-stocking.

I would urge all of you to get your fe