LIVE STOCK breeders' ASSOCIATION. 173 



of the calves, in this instance. The relative costs per hundred pounds 

 of gain for these different ages were for calves $3.60 a hundred for the 

 grain fed; yearlings $4.65; two-year olds $5.70; three-year olds $6.20. 

 It cost almost twice as much, not quite, to produce 100 pounds of gain 

 on three-year old steers as upon calves in this experiment. The profit 

 per steer is as follows: On the calf $14; on the yearling $26; on the 

 two-year old $26, and on the three-year old $16. The calf returned the 

 lowest profit per head and you might immediately jump to the con- 

 clusion that therefore the calf is not so profitable as the two or three- 

 year old ; but this does not tell the story at all, because you have in- 

 vested in the three-year old nearly three times as much as you have 

 in the calf. For the same money that it would cost to buy a three- 

 year old, you could probably buy three calves. 



In this experiment the actual facts are that the calves cost $3 . 50 

 a hundred ; the yearlings $4 a hundred ; the two-year olds $4 a hun- 

 dred; and the three-year olds $4.50 a hundred, and they sold the 

 calves for $5.50 per hundred and the others for $3.17 a hundred. 

 These were the market prices. But assuming that all of the cattle 

 were bought for 4 cents and sold for 5 cents a pound, and estimating 

 the profit on a thousand pounds of calves bought at 4 cents and sold at 

 5 cents and a thousand pounds of one, two and of three-year olds 

 bought at 4 cents and sold at 5 cents, we have the following figures: 

 on the calves the profit is $22.30 a thousand pounds ; on the yearlings 

 $11.36; on the two-year olds $7.95, and on the three-year olds $7.10. 



Suppose a man had' a thousand dollars to invest — and that is the 

 proposition that confronts most of us — which is the best, to invest a 

 thousand dollars in calves, yearlings, or two-year olds for profitable 

 feeding? Assuming that we have a thousand dollars to invest and 

 taking these figures I have given you, of buying the animals at 4 cents 

 and selling them at 5, here are the profits resulting from the feeding 

 experiments on the thousand dollars invested : On the thousand 

 dollars invested in calves at the time of birth, the profit was $557 ; on 

 two-year olds $198; on three-year olds $177. Do not hold me respon- 

 sible for the profits that these men made on these cattle, that is not 

 my fault, and it is not my fault if you cannot make the same profit. 

 What I want you to pay attention to is not the absolute, but the 

 relative profit. Now the profit made on three-year olds on the thou- 

 sand dollars invested in this Canada Station was $177.50, and on 

 the two-year olds it was $198. On the yearlings it was $284, and on 

 the calves it was $557. Now, what does this mean? It means what 

 I have tried to make clear above, that the results of our experiments 



