TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 445 



the special study of the native-beef-steer situation. This has involved 

 the securing of all available information as to the market movement 

 prices, and disposition of this kind of cattle. The object of the work was 

 to try to get dependable information as to the actual receipts by grades, 

 and especially of the better grades, of native steers, which would include 

 all these animals grain-fed coming to the Chicago market from the corn 

 belt region. 



Such information has never been secured before and no attempt has 

 ever been made to secure it. Corn-fed cattle have been considered hereto- 

 fore as only a part of the general run of cattle, and it has never been 

 considered worth while to study them as a separate kind produced under 

 special conditions involving peculiar risks not found in the production 

 of other kinds of cattle, and the prices for which are determined by other 

 forces than those that determine the prices of the general run of cattle. 



For the purpose In mind, the following schedule of information was 

 thought desirable: 



The total receipts by grades. This was wanted as showing what pro- 

 portion of the cattle receipts at the Chicago market was made up of this 

 kind of steers and how this proportion was distributed among the grades 

 of choice to prime, good, medium, and common, and low-grade. 



Receipts by weight. This to show the numbers of the different grades 

 by weight and the relationship between grades, which means quality and 

 weight. All previous information of a similar kind had been based on 

 weight and not on quality, but "by establishing some relationship between 

 weight and quality this information might be rendered more valuable 

 than it now is. 



States from which shipments originated. To show the comparative 

 importance of different states in the production of such cattle, and the 

 time of year that different grades came to market from different states. 



The buyers. To show the disposition made of the different grades of 

 cattle, whether bought for Chicago slaughter or for eastern shipment, the 

 number bought by large packers and by small slaughterers, also the 

 amount of speculative trading, and the proportion bought for stocker- 

 and-feeder account. 



To correlate this information as to receipts and sale, certain informa- 

 tion was desired from the packing interests on enough lots of cattle to 

 make them representative of the different grades. This included, as to 

 selected lots, the live price, the dressing-yield or beef-yield, the allow- 

 ance for by-products, the killing costs, the grade of the resultant car- 

 casses, and the current price for similar grades of carcass beef; also 

 weekly reports as to the prices at which chief by-products, especially 

 hides and tallow, were credited. 



This information was desired to try and establish the relationship 

 between cattle grades and beef grades, if any exists, so as to know 

 whether different grades of carcass beef are derived from similarly 

 named grades of steers or whether there is not a tendency for the grad- 

 ing to improve from the stockyards to the coolers. It was also wanted to 

 assist in the establishment of a better basis for grading cattle in the yards 



