62 Missouri Agricultural Rei)ort. 



price, chiefly for the manufacture of soap. This means that the 

 corn of the Mississippi Valley is being converted into high-priced 

 fat on our hogs, cattle and sheep, a portion of which finally finds 

 its way into a soap factory through the sewers of our great cities. 



Just what number of pounds of the annual production of the 

 steer would be actually left as digestible material it is impossible 

 to say, but it is perhaps not unreasonable to say that the amount 

 of digestible matter produced by the cow is about three times as 

 large as that produced by the steer in the same length of time. 



Thus it is perfectly evident that the dairy cow is a very much 

 more efficient machine for the manufacture of our grain, grass and 

 hay into edible animal products than is the beef steer, or than is 

 any animal producing meat, for that matter. 



Of equal importance is the fact that the cow will make the 

 yearly product ascribed to her in the foregoing computations on 

 grass alone without grain during the summer months. The rest 

 of the year she will eat less grain per day than the steer will re- 

 quire. On the other hand, it will be necessary to feed the steer 

 to the full limit of his appetite for each one of the 300 days figured 

 in the foregoing tables in order to have him make the amount of 

 gain credited to him. All these figures for the cow are in every 

 way conservative. It is likely indeed that the amount of food con- 

 sumed by the steer to make the gains used in our computations 

 would produce fully one-third more milk and total solids than has 

 been credited to the cow. 



RELATIVE COST OF BEEF AND DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



Because dairy products have uniformly sold at a very much 

 higher price than most other animal products, it has been assumed 

 that the cost was proportionately greater. Professor C. H. Eckles, 

 of the Department of Dairy Husbandry of the University, has 

 been kind enough to supply the records of two cows in the Uni- 

 versity dairy herd of fair to good quality, as follows : 



Cow 1. 



Milk produced In a year 



Butter produced in a year 



Milk solids produced In a year. 



Cost of feed for 12 months 



Cost of butter per pound 



Oost of milk solids per pound. . . 



6988 pounds. 

 421 

 W2 

 $30.00 



7 cents. 

 8 



