150 Missouri Agncultural Report. 



Experiment Station, 1904, for some unexplainable reason, the cost 

 on yearlings was excessively high, whereas the cost on two-year- 

 olds was abnormally low. At least, these figures seem to be out 

 of all proportion to the results in other years at the Ottawa Ex- 

 periment Station, and at variance with the results obtained at 

 Kansas and Missouri, Too much reliance, therefore, should not 

 be placed in an average figure that involves results of this trial. 

 It would really be better, for the sake of accuracy, to throw it out. 

 Leaving it in, however, as has just been stated, the average differ- 

 ence was 31 cents per hundred in favor of the yearlings, or a total 

 of 80 cents per steer. This would have necessitated a buying 

 margin of six cents per hundred, or a selling margin of five cents 

 per hundred. In other words, if yearling steers in the fall had 

 been worth $4.50 per hundred, two-year-old steers, on the basis of 

 these experiments, should have been bought for $4.43, or if the 

 yearlings, when finished, had brought $5,50, it would have been 

 necessary for the two-year-olds to have brought $5.55 to fully 

 equalize this difference in cost. As a matter of fact, the two-year- 

 old cattle brought, on the average, 10 cents per hundred more than 

 did the yearlings. 



Eliminating the results of the 1904 experiment on the ground 

 that they are abnormal, we have an average cost of gain on year- 

 lings of $5.21 per hundred and on two-year-olds of $5.79, or a 

 difference of 58 cents per hundred, or approximately $1.78 per 

 steer. This would necessitate a buying margin of 17 cents, or a 

 selling margin of 13 cents. 



On the basis of the Kansas results, the two-year-olds cost 80 

 cents per hundred more to make than did the yearlings, or an aver- 

 age of $3,34 per head. Thus it would have required, taking the 

 actual weights of the cattle used in the Kansas experiment, an 

 excess buying margin of 41 cents per hundred, or an excess selling 

 margin of 27 cents per hundred. The selling margin was 15 cents 

 per hundred, or an insufficient amount by $1.50 per head, or 12 

 cents per hundred, to counterbalance the excess in cost, 



YEARLINGS AND THREE-YEAR-OLDS CONTRASTED, 



Here is likewise a wide range in different years on the basis 

 of the Ottawa experiments. In 1904, as has already been pointed 

 out, for some reason the yearlings seem to have cost excessively 

 high, and the cost of the two-year-olds and the three-year-ods was, 

 curiously enough, very low. Thus it happened that it cost 40 cents 

 per hundred less to put gains on three-year-olds that year than 



