farmers' institutes. 263 



These experiments show the importance of feeding a balanced 

 ration. Notice that when corn and timothy hay were fed together 

 the daily gain per steer was only 1.97 pounds and that a bushel of 

 corn produced only 5 pounds gain. But, however, when clover was 

 fed instead of timothy the average daily gain per steer was 2.84 

 pounds, and a l)ushel of corn produced 6.44 pounds of gain or prac- 

 tically a pound and a half in favor of clover hay. With beef at five 

 cents per pound this means that the feeder would get about seven and 

 a half cents per bushel more for his corn by feeding clover instead 

 of timothy. 



It is of importance to note that not only did the clover and cow 

 pea hay give more rapid and much cheaper gains, but the steers fed 

 on these hays showed a much better coat and far more finish than 

 those fed on timothy hay, and would have easily outsold them on 

 the market. Even when corn fodder and wheat straw was fed with 

 cither clover or cow pea hay the effect upon the quality and appear- 

 ance of the^steer was as marked as the gain. 



RATIONS FOR WINTERING YEARLING STEERS. 



Since practically every farmer winters at least a few cattle and 

 comparatively only a few men finish cattle for market, the Missouri 

 Station decided to carry on a series of experiments to determine the 

 best roughness for wintering steers without grain or on half feed. 

 The trials were made with four yearling steers in each lot, and corn 

 and timothy hay were again taken as the standard ration. 



The results of the first experiment were briefly as follows : 



\ 



I Daily gain per 

 Ttie lot fed on I steer — lbs. 



Timothy hay, etc., 28 bu. of corn 



Clover hay and corn fodder, 28 bu. of corn. 



Cow pea hay, 28 bu. of corn 



Cow pea hafy, no corn 



.64 



.88 



1.54 



.56 



One of the most striking results of this experiment is the ex- 

 cellent gains obtained by feeding cow pea hay. It will be noticed 

 that when fed with 28 bushels of corn the average daily gain per 

 steer was 1.54 pound as compared with 0.64 pound when timothy 

 hay and corn was fed. Even when fed alone, without any grain at 

 all, the average daily gain per steer was only 0.08 pound less than 

 when 28 bushels of corn was fed with timothy hay. 



