152 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ready for market than did the two-year-old, taking the actual gains 

 made by each lot as a basis of computation. To offset this differ- 

 ence, it would have been necessary to have bought the three-year- 

 olds at 18 cents per hundred less, or to have sold them at 15 cents 

 per hundred more. In these experiments the excess in selling 

 price of three-year-olds over two-year-olds was only seven cents 

 p(r hundred, leaving about half of the difference yet to be made 

 up in some other way. Thus, if the two-year-olds could have been 

 bought at $4.25 per hundred in the fall, three-year-olds would have 

 been equally cheap at $4.07, on the basis of cost of gains alone 

 and disregarding any greater ease with which they might have 

 been fattened, any greater uniformity with which they would be- 

 come fat, etc. 



In the case of the Kansas experiment, the difference was 50 

 cents per hundred, or $2.19 per head, and required an excess in 

 buying margin of 21 cents, or an excess in selling price of 15 cents 

 per hundred. It happened that the 20 three-year-old steers used 

 in this experiment sold for 25 cents per hundred more than did 

 the 20 two-year-olds, thus fully offsetting the $2.19 excess in cost 

 of making, and leaving, on the basis of the actual gains made in 

 the experiment, a margin of $4.30 per steer in favor of the three- 

 year-olds, due to the superior condition, no doubt, in which the 

 older cattle reached the market, all having been fed an equal length 

 of time. 



Before considering the Missouri results, which are on a differ- 

 ent basis, it is obvious that if cattle of equal quality and in the 

 same condition of the various ages, calves, yearlings, two-year-olds 

 and three-year-olds, are fed alike on good nutritious feed, and are 

 all fed the same length of time, or until the older cattle become 

 fat, and the whole put upon the market, the increased cost due to 

 age and to increased fatness will apparently be fully or practically 

 offset or counterbalanced by the increased price commanded by the 

 older cattle. 



If these experiments point to the truth, that is, if the differ- 

 ence in the cost of gain is fully or even approximately offset by 

 the superior selling quality of the older cattle, then the greater 

 cheapness with which the older feeders can be bought on the mar- 

 ket, as is well known by any professional feeder, and as has already 

 been pointed out in this paper, leaves a very decided advantage in 

 favor of feeding the older cattle, even when we disregard the 

 greater uniformity with which the older cattle will fatten, the less 



