LIVE STOCK BREEDERS. 199 



in the Union we are bound to give her first rank among the common- 

 wealths of Americra. If we examine still more minutely the resources 

 of the State and attempt to classify her agricultural resources, we very 

 soon come to learn that the live stock industry of Missouri is pre-emi- 

 nently the greatest single industry of this great State. 



Of all the animal products which contribute to the great sum total 

 of Missouri's wealth, beef cattle is the greatest single item in the count. 

 Missouri is not a dairy state, Missouri is not a sheep state, and while 

 her horse stock and mule stock are large, still as compared with the im- 

 mense returns from beef cattle they are comparatively small. We must 

 therefore conclude that any information regarding the profitable pro- 

 duction of beef is always a timely subject in Missouri. 



Men engaged in the beef cattle business in this State may be di- 

 vided into two classes, those who breed and rear their own calves and 

 those who buy cattle from the ranges or from smaller farmers and feed 

 cattle as a business. This latter class is a large class in this State and 

 the feeders of Missouri have become justly renowned in the large mark- 

 ets of the country for their skill in feeding cattle. 



It is my purpose to discuss for a brief time today some of the re- 

 sults which have been secured by the Experiment Stations of this coun- 

 try that may aid us in carrying on the business of cattle feeding more 

 profitably. The experiment stations of America have devoted more time 

 and attention to the problems of the stock feeder than to any other one 

 subject connected with animal husbandry. It may be well for us, 

 standing as we do near the end of the first score of years of experi- 

 mentation in this country to ask ourselves what has been accomplished? 

 What do we know now about feeding animals that we did not know 

 before the establishment of the experiment stations? Surely this vast 

 array of carefully planned and executed experiments numbering up into 

 the thousands must have thrown some light upon the practical problems 

 of feeding. 



In determinmg the question as to whether the stations have suc- 

 ceeded in helping us to solve some of the difliiculties which confront the 

 feeder we must first undertake to decide what are the purposes and aims 

 of the feeder and then what difficulties lie in the way of accomplishing 

 these ends. Confining our attention now entirely to the cattle feeder 

 we may say that the aim of the feeder is to produce a pound of beef 

 at the lowest possible cost and to produce the quality of beef which the 

 market demands. 



