530 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



improve the quality, instead ol^ making it poor as it would with 

 poor cattle. The covering of fat should be complete, extending 

 over and covering all pans. Coming down on the round as the 

 sides hang up ihe round should be well covered. It should be cov- 

 ered last J or, if covered up on the round the rest will be covered. 

 The color of the fat is an important point. The color should be 

 white, the whiter the better and white ratlier than yellow. The 

 white fat is considered as an indication of young beef, while if the fat 

 is very yellow it indicates age. 



This is not necessarily always true. Cattle from some of the 

 dairy breeds, as Jerseys and Guernseys, will kill yellow even at 

 two years, especially the Guernsey's coating. They show a very 

 rich orange colored skin and that color seems to sift through the 

 fat, and two year old Guerneys will dress yellow and will sell as 

 cow beef. The color is not necessarily controlled by the breed. Lots 

 of cattle of the beef breeds will sometimes dress yellow. It is due 

 a great deal to individuality. You cannot tell until the steer comes 

 out of the cooler whether he is goiug to dress nice and white or 

 not. The fat covering should be complete but not too great. Gen- 

 erally there is no trouble with cattle too fat. The kind of stulf 

 that comes on the market in the smaller cities is usually unfinished 

 rather than overdone; while in the big markets we come across 

 cattle too fat, great soft or large bunches .of tallow over the ribs, 

 round, tail head and rump, and that would be objectionable. But 

 generally speaking, in order to get high class beef and sufficient 

 finish to make it we must have some waste fat or tallow. There 

 must be some trimming, and when we come to cut up these big steers 

 there will be some considerable trimming on some parts; but in 

 order to get the best grades of beef some trimming is necessary. 



The coloring of the lean also, when you come to rip them they 

 should show a bright rich red color rather than a dark color. A 

 very dark color is undesirable. Poor cattle without much fat and 

 old cattle generally dress dark; but good prime beef should show 

 a nice bright red color, not perhaps too red to be fiery, but a nice 

 rich red color. 



Those are the points you take into consideration principally in 

 studying quality in beef ; the dressing per cent. ; the general shape of 

 the body; compact, well filled, thick round; thick loin; and well 

 shaped on the ribs; good thick, compact chuck, but not over-devel- 

 oped in the front quarter; and short light shanks. The smaller 

 the bones as indicated by the sbank, the better from the butcher's 

 standpoint. There will be less bone trimming and when you buy 

 a piece of meat you get more meat and less bone in the cut, or a 

 greater proportion of meat to the bone. 



The graining of the meat and fat, that should be very firm and 

 fine grained, not too coarse, not soft; it should be very firm. We 

 have to make some allowance for these cattle (showing) because 

 they were only killed yesterday at one o'clock and have not had 

 sufficient time in the coolers to harden down. They ought to be 

 left in the coolers for at least twenty-four hours more; a little more 

 than that would have been better. They have been cooled out very 

 well considering the length of time they had. The big steer is 

 pretty well cooled down for a heavy carcass of this sort which 

 was only in the coolers for twenty-four hours. The fat should be 



