BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 77 



combinations of cottonseed meal and corn. All received 4 pounds of 

 alfalfa hay per head per day with all the silage they would eat. 

 With corn at 70 cents a bushel, it was more economical to feed the 

 calves on cottonseed meal alone. If corn had been charged at 50 

 cents a bushel the calves receiving corn would have made consider- 

 ably larger profits than those receiving cottonseed meal as the sole 

 concentrate. If steers and calves which are fed corn are followed 

 by pigs to consume the waste, the results indicate that feeding baby 

 beeves on corn may be profitable in Mississippi. 



Maintenance of stockers and feeders. — The experimental work 

 in wintering cattle was continued in North Carolina and West Vir- 

 ginia in cooperation with the State stations. The work in North 

 Carolina was a duplication of the work of the previous year in study- 

 ing economical methods of wintering beef steers. The results of the 

 1916 work were almost identical with those of the two preceding 

 years. The common practice of wintering steers on ear corn and corn 

 stover, hay, and straw was the most expensive method used in either 

 North Carolina or West Virginia. Steers fed a medium ration of 

 corn silage and dry roughage wintered equally as well as those which 

 received ear corn and dry roughage, and were wintered at $5 a head 

 less expense. The practice of winter-grazing steers on mountain 

 lands which have been permitted to grow up in meadows during the 

 summer proved very satisfactory. The cost of wintering steers in 

 this manner in North Carolina was $5.30 per head, as compared with 

 $12.14 per head where they were fed on dry roughage and ear corn. 

 The steers which were winter-grazed made a gain of 26 pounds per 

 head during the winter, whereas the steers fed ear corn lost 34 

 pounds per head during the same period. The experimental work 

 with both yearling steers and beef cows in West Virginia indicates 

 clearly the advisability of using corn silage and cottonseed meal for 

 wintering the animals in preference to using dry roughages. 



BREEDING SHORTHOKN CATTLE. 



Experiments in breeding Shorthorn cattle, designed to study a 

 problem in Shorthorn breeding which has puzzled breeders and 

 other students for some time, were begun during the year, in cooper- 

 ation with the Kansas experiment station. The Shorthorn cows 

 which have been producing the show winners in this country are not 

 of the type which themselves would win in the show ring. The 

 Kansas Agricultural College has had a creditable record in the ex- 

 hibition of show steers, especially Shorthorns. These Shorthorn 

 steers have never come from cows of show type. The object of the 

 experiments is to determine whether beefiness is a characteristic of 

 sex, and in what way it is related to functional development; also 

 whether it is possible to produce a herd of animals that will have a 

 double standard — one for males and another for females — rather 

 than a dual-purpose type, which is a compromise between the two 

 ideals: in other words, whether it is possible to produce a herd of 

 cows that will be good milkers and will transmit the milking func- 

 tion to their heifers and at the same time transmit the tendency to 

 beefiness in the males and also in females previous to calving. 



For the experiments a herd of 20 Scotch and Scotch-topped Short- 

 horn cows has been selected. Each of these cows has produced one or 



