March 10, 1948
Cows-Hogs Make Fine Combination
Illinois Farmer Finds Durocs and Milking Shorthorns Profitable
Some people like for their cattle to be black - some prefer red ones with white markings - some will have nothing to do with bovine critters unless they are red, white or roan - and then there are some who say that the red, white and roan is all right, but in addition they must be of a milking strain.
Reference, of course, is made to milking Shorthorns, and the man who picked this breed of cattle to work with is Ernest L. Meredith, in DeWitt County, IL. And he has some good reasons to like his choice breed besides the color.
It was back in the bleak days of 1930 and the still tougher times immediately following through the depression that Mr. and Mrs. Meredith decided to buy the 207 acres they now live on. It was a farm and that was about all that could be said about the place that was complimentary.
A Run Down Farm
The house was an old rambling shack - there was a crib and a rackety cow shed - no fences to keep the livestock out of the crops - and worse than all of these handicaps was the depleted soil that was only good for about 25 or 30 bushels of corn per acre.
In the spring of 1933 the Merediths moved onto their farm and started to work in earnest to see what they could do to make the soil more productive and at the same time make a living for two boys, Glenn and Robert, Mariam, who is 10 now, came along a few years later.
In 1935 the Merediths really started in the milking shorthorn business in a big way and built up a herd that totaled as much as 150 head of purebreds at a time. It fluctuated quite a bit in numbers because Ernest Meredith is a trader and readily admits it! He does a lot of buying and selling - at one time took all of the offspring from several Minnesota herds and has bought cattle in Canada. In fact, he has been known to buy a load of breeding stock and end up by selling it before he reached home!
As a result of all this trading, he has become somewhat of a pedigree expert and can tell you what he thinks of an animal's ancestors without going to a reference book to check them.
$200 Per Stanchion
The dairy barn that will hold 35 cows was built in 1938 and Mr. Meredith says that for the past 10 years every stanchion in the barn has returned him a net income of $100 in milk and another $100 in purebred calves to sell, or a total of $200 per stanchion.
In addition to the large dairy barn, there is a modern bull barn that will hold four bulls and it has pens 40 by 20 feet in front of each bull's stall so that they can exercise without endangering the life of a man.
Show and sale window of the farm is the small pasture that runs along the main highway past the farm. People in need of bulls are apt to see a calf they like and stop to ask about it. Usually they end up by taking a bull calf home with them!
300 Durocs a Year
Red seems to be a favorite color with the Merediths, for purebred Durocs now play an important part in the operation of the home farm and an additional 240 acres over in McLean County. About 300 pigs are farrowed a year. We should say during the year, for they are scattered over the 12 months and get part of the credit along with the cattle for helping pay off the mortgage.
Present plans call for a feeding unit on the 240 acre farm and about half of the pig crop farrowed on the home farm will be fed out on this McLean county farm as well as about 50 head of calves per year.
Mr. Meredith helped organize the Central Illinois Milking Shorthorn association five years ago and it has grown from the 16 original charter members to a total of 75 today. Seventeen counties are represented and the organization has done much to promote the breed and aid in the sale of breeding stock owned by the members.
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