244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of barrel and various other accompaniments which catinot be 

 mentioned here. 



The difference in capacity of animals similar in age, breed- 

 ing, and form, to digest and assimilate food, is very great. It 

 varies in some instances between fifty and one hundred per 

 cent. One steer being fattened will sometimes gain but little 

 .more than one pound a day, whereas another steer will gain 

 two pounds per day on practically the same food. But the 

 dift'erence in returns in meat-making animals as the result of 

 form is no less great. One animal possessed of correct form 

 will sell for five cents per pound alive, when another fed for 

 as long a period will only sell for three cents, the difference 

 being based entirely, or almost entirely, on form. 



As a rule, the amount of food required to make a pound of 

 gain in meat-making animals increases as the birth period is re- 

 ceded from. 



It is easily possible to make an animal of beef inheritance 

 gain two pounds daily during the first year, not including birth 

 weight, even though reared essentially on skim-milk and ad- 

 juncts during the milk period. The same animal is not likely 

 to increase in weight the second year more rapidly than one 

 and one-half pounds per day, or the third year more rapidly 

 than one and one-quarter pounds per day, notwithstanding 

 that more food was consumed the second year than the first, 

 and the third year than the second. The explanation is found 

 in greater activity of the digestive organs near the birth period 

 and to the increase in the cost of the food of maintenance as the 

 birth period is receded from. Young swine furnish an excep- 

 tion to the rule regarding increase in weight, but not in regard 

 to increase in the food required to make weight. Young swine 

 W'hile nursing cannot be made to gain so rapidly as at a later 

 period. 



The economy of pushing our meat-making animals rapidly 

 from birth until ready for the block will be readily apparent. 

 The importance of so doing increases with relative increase in 

 the cost of food. It may be different where, at certain seasons 

 of the year, cheap and coarse foods are abundant on the farm, 

 and it is desirable to utilize them to the utmost, or where pas- 

 tures are partly or wholly free, as on the range. It may be 

 that a steer grown on the range will bring the greatest profit 

 sold at four years. It may also be that a steer grown on farms 



