Plan of the Experiment 



363 



Frequently a small amount of feed was left in the mangers from the 

 night before, but the cattle were weighed with a small shrinkage esti- 

 mated to be about 2 percent, or half the amount usually allowed in 

 marketing such animals. The cattle were weighed as soon after 8 

 o'clock as possible and according to a regular system, so that the 

 weights would be uniform each week. 



FEEDS USED 

 The feeds selected were those most available and commonly used 

 by cattle feeders in the Salt River Valley. Loose alfalfa hay, sorghum 

 silage, cottonseed meal, thrashed ground milo maize, and thrashed 

 ground hegari were used in this experiment. The prices of these 

 feeds at the time the experiment began were as follows: 



Loose alfalfa hay, $25 per ton. 



Sorghum silage, $8 per ton. 



Thrashed ground milo maize, $54 per ton. 



Thrashed ground hegari, $54 per ton. 



Cottonseed meal, $80 per ton. 

 The above prices have been used in calculating the cost of the 

 rations and the cost of producing gains. The quality of the feeds was 

 about average. The hay was fairly free from weeds but somewhat 

 coarse in texture. The sorghum silage varied somewhat from time 

 to time, but it had been cut when fairly green and was of about average 

 quality. While the cottonseed meal was purchased and labelled to 

 contain 47 percent protein, the direct analysis showed that it had only 

 38.46 percent of protein. The chemical composition of the various 

 feeds used was determined by direct analysis by the Department of 

 Agricultural Chemistry as given in Table IL 



