76 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sippi. The field has now broadened and work is being carried on also 

 in other sections of the country. 



BEEF PRODUCTION. 



Except for the first three years, the experimental beef-cattle 

 work has been conducted on the farms of owners of herds of beef 

 cattle. The owner of the farm furnishes all the cattle, feed, equip- 

 ment, etc., the department stationing a trained man on the farm to 

 take charge of the herd and keep the records. The results obtained 

 on these farms are therefore applicable to any other farm in the 

 same section and under similar soil and climatic conditions. This ar- 

 rangement has made possible the prosecution of this work at a very 

 low cost, and the method followed has given farmers great confi- 

 dence in the results obtained. 



Growing beef animals. — An elaborate study of growing beef ani- 

 mals, in cooperation with the Office of Farm Management, was con- 

 ducted on farms in the corn belt. The results were published in Ke- 

 port No. Ill, being Part III of the report on the "Meat Situation in 

 the United States." This is the most comprehensive and complete 

 report that has ever been made on the subject. Eecords were ob- 

 tained on the cost of raising calves from over 14,000 cows of the corn 

 belt. The report shows that the cost of producing calves is higher 

 than is usually thought, but that when all things are considered the 

 calves can usually be raised at a profit. This work is to be continued. 



Two herds of breeding cows are maintained in Mississippi and one 

 herd in West Virginia, in cooperation with the State experiment sta- 

 tions, to study the cost of producing beef calves in those sections. 



Fattening cattle. — At Canton, Miss., in the brown-loam section 

 of the State, four car lots of steers were used in winter feeding in 

 making a comparison of roughages for fattening steers. The four 

 lots received an average daily ration of 7 pounds of cottonseed meal 

 per head. The first three lots were used to determine whether it was 

 more profitable to feed corn silage as the sole roughage in the ration, 

 or to combine silage with a small quantity of corn stover or oat 

 straw. The three car lots of silage-fed steers gained slightly over 2 

 pounds per head per day for the entire period of 126 days. They 

 sold for $8.45 per hundred pounds on the St. Louis market ; dressed 

 out 58.2 per cent, and made an average profit of over $10 a head. 

 The steers of the fourth lot, which were fed on dry roughage, made a 

 profit of $0.51 a head. 



Three car lots of steers were used in the winter feeding work at 

 Abbott, Miss., in the black-prairie section. All the steers received 

 the same roughage. 36 pounds of corn silage and 4 pounds of straw 

 per head per day. A comparison was made of the relative efficiency 

 of cottonseed meal alone as compared with a combination of cotton- 

 seed meal and corn for fattening the steers. The steers receiving 

 corn made larger gains per day. With corn charged at 70 cents a 

 bushel, the increased gain in weight was not quite large enough to 

 overbalance the increased cost of the feeding. If corn had been 

 charged at 63 cents a bushel the profits on all lots would have been 

 the same. 



Three lots of beef calves were fed out as baby beef on the same 

 farm, and a similar comparison made as between cottonseed meal and 



