68 



each day. However, the reader should not come to the 

 conchision that the daily gains measure the success of 

 a feeding operation altogether. It is, of course, necessary 

 ior good gains to be secured, but the fmal profits are not 

 determined entirely by the daily gains. Other factors, 

 as the price of the feeds and the selling price of the cat- 

 tle, must be taken into consideration. 



The cattle which were fed a partial ration of Johnson- 

 grass hay made the most satisfactory gains, making a 

 daily gain per steer of only 1.54 pounds during the whole 

 period of 84 days. As far as gains were concerned the 

 Johnson-grass hay proved to be unsatisfactory, as cot- 

 tonseed meal and hulls, when fed alone, produced great- 

 er gain than when the two were combined with Johnson- 

 grass hay. The hay was of good quality and the cattle 

 ate it with considerable relish. Oftentime Johnson-grass 

 is cut at such a late stage of maturity that it is stiff, 

 woody, and unpalatable, but the hay used in this test was 

 €ut and harvested at the proper stage. 



The supply of silage was exhausted at the end of 56 

 days, so this lot of cattle (Lot 1) was continued to the 

 end of the test on cottonseed meal and hulls, the hull 

 part of the ration being increased sufficiently to take the 

 place of the silage. After the feeding of silage was dis- 

 continued the cattle still continued to make good gains, 

 as each steer made a gain of 47 pounds during the last 

 28 days of the test. During this same period each steer 

 which was eating Johnson-grass hay (Lot 2) made a gain 

 of 49 pounds, while each steer in Lot 3 gained only 38 

 pounds. As a matter of fact, it was expected that small 

 gains would be secured after the discontinuance of the 

 silage, but the change was made gradually and the steers 

 did not seem to notice the substitution of hulls for the 

 silage. Cottonseed meal and hulls make an extremely 

 palatable combination of feeds; in fact, it is difficult to 

 find a combination of feeds more palatable than a mix- 

 ture of these two southern feeds. 



' At the end of the experiment the steers in Lots 1, 2 and 

 3 '. averaged 962, 949, and 995 pounds, respectively, in 

 weight; they made average total gains of 151, 129, and 

 144 pounds in the respective lots. 



