No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICUL,TURE. 353 



as does the animal that dresses 55 per cent, and 58 per cent.; in 

 other words, when the butcher or packer buys an animal that is going 

 to come in this class of higher dressing percentage, he gets that many 

 more pounds of edible meat than he can get from one that dresses to 

 the lower percentage. Now the two carcasses that we have here 

 tonight, one is in just as good condition, an excellent market carcass, 

 one not overly fat, one that possibly could stand a little more finish, 

 yet it is considerably better than many of the carcasses we get. The 

 other is a carcass that comes from an animal that should have re- 

 mained in the feed lot at least three to five months longer. That ani- 

 mal would have been more profitable to the owner, more profitable to 

 the packer. 



As breeders, we must bear this fact in mind, that you cannot 

 take any old thing and make a good meat animal out of it. A meat 

 animal inherits its possibilities from its sire and dam. If you are 

 going to gTow beef, you must have upon your place a good pure bred 

 sire that has been bred for beef production, and the same thing is 

 true on the female side. You will find that when these characteris- 

 tics are inherited from the parents and by judicious care, economical 

 feeding, you can produce beef of the right kind and can do it at a 

 profit. The two carcasses we have here tonight — one is a heifer and 

 one a steer. Some of you will say that is not altogether a fair com- 

 parison, but I have taken the precaution to make it fair; that is, 

 the best individual or best carcass tonight is the heifer rather than 

 the steer. 



It is through the kindness of the Bengam Packing Company that 

 we can have this material for demonstration work tonight. I be- 

 lieve they appreciate the lessons that we can get from these carcasses 

 and they are only too glad and willing to permit us to have the 

 meat. They also gave me a few figures relative to these carcasses. 

 The live weight of the steer was 993 pounds; dressed, 49 per cent.; 

 not quite half. The live weight price was |5.57 a hundred pounds. 

 The cost of the carcass as it is here tonight, after deducting the 

 labor or charging the labor, deducting the value of the hide and 

 the fat, cost them |10.76 for a hundred pounds, dressed carcass. The 

 heifer, live weight, was 1165 pounds; dressed, 54^ per cent. The 

 animal cost |6.50 on foot. The carcass cost them |11.14. 



Now let's go back and see what the farmer got for these two cattle. 

 It is true, that cattle at the present time are not selling for what 

 they have been selling during the past year, and market conditions 

 are demoralized, but the comparison is the same; it would not make 

 any difference whether they had paid 8 cents for one and 7 cents 

 for another, the comparison would be the same. The light steer re- 

 turned 155.31; the heifer, |75.72, or a difference of |20.41 on the 

 two carcasses, and there is a dift'erence of a hundred and some 

 pounds, I haven't tlie figures here, but that would mean a difference 

 of 111.84 for the additional weight which the man put on the heifer; 

 in other words, he received 111.84 for every hundred pounds of addi- 

 tional weight that that heifer carried. In other words, we can as- 

 sume that if that farmer had retained his steer, kept him in the 

 feeding lot and fed him up to the stage that he fed that heifer, he 

 would have received |11.84 for every 100 pounds of live weight that 

 he woultl put on over the 993 pounds. When you figure that he 

 would have fed that animal farm grown feeds, he would have gotten 



23—5—1914 



