176 Missouri Agricultural Rei^ort. 



better to breed from an animal with a good pedigree than just 

 because he has good looks? 



The Chairman : I think that has been answered. It has been 

 answered in 3'our own minds, at any rate, and I think we all agree 

 on that question, anyway, that a good animal, backed by good an- 

 cestors, is the one to breed. 



ECONOMICAL RATIONS IN BEEF PRODUCTION. 



(H. R. Smith, Bulletin No. 80, Nebraska Experiment Station.) 



The discovery of methods by which beef production can be 

 made more profitable is one of the important problems now under 

 investigation at the Nebraska Experiment Station. During recent 

 years the attractive prices offered for corn by the markets of the 

 world have led many stockmen of the State to discontinue their 

 cattle feeding operations and to sell the crop direct to elevator com- 

 panies for shipment. Others have turned their attention to pork 

 and mutton production. That beef values have not kept pace v/ith 

 those of corn in the upward trend of recent years is undeniable. 



Nor can it be said that the market quotations for corn-fed beef 

 have been as attractive as the prices offered for finished pork and 

 mutton. Nevertheless, cattle feeding has its place, and the industry 

 will be regarded with increasing favor as we learn to more fully 

 appreciate the importance of cattle in their relation to the economic 

 management of our land. On practically every farm in the State 

 where grain crops have been grown -and sold direct to the elevator 

 for a succession of years, the soil is much below the productive 

 capacity of adjoining farms where crop rotation and stock feeding 

 have been practiced. Pork production, good so far as it goes in 

 turning back to the land fertilizing material taken from the soil, 

 and profitable as it has been during these years of high prices, 

 should not be carried on to the entire exclusion of all other forms 

 of meat production. The occasional destruction of an entire herd 

 of swine by the ravages of cholera is a matter to be considered, but 

 as an argument for a greater diversity of live stock on the farm it 

 does not carry the weight of the one great argument, viz.: the 

 economical conversion of the vast quantity of roughage grown on 

 every farm as by-products to grain into some marketable com- 

 modity. Cattle and sheep feeding not only make possible the utili- 

 zation of such material, but these ruminants, requiring much bulk 



