PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 469 



Lot 9 — The same as Lot 6, with one and one-half pounds of cottonseed 

 meal. 



Lot 10 — The same as Lot 6, with three pounds of cottonseed meal. 



So that this is a study of a variation of the so-called standard ration, 

 shelled corn being the base in every case, and then a study of the supple- 

 mentary feeds of cottonseed oil meal and linseed oil meal, and the clover 

 hay and the silage. Now these are the rations that Iowa feeders have 

 generally used. They are the standard rations of the corn belt, and while 

 we have done work in that line, we haven't before used as many lots of 

 steers as these, and we have not made the experiment quite as wide in its 

 scope as this. With the co-operation of this association and your presi- 

 dent, Mr. Sykes, helping to select the steers, that are high-grade Hereford 

 steers, put in at the cost I named and with the initial weight which 1 

 mentioned, we are expecting to get some results that will be highly 

 interesting, and we hope that they will be useful and valuable to the 

 feeders of Iowa. 



Then there are some other problems that we have taken up in con- 

 nection with cattle feeding. There is a good deal of money paid out 

 every year for the various kinds of commercial foods that are used to 

 supplement corn, and we have tested out those foods in previous years 

 quite thoroughly and with interesting results. In the years 1918 and 

 1919, on an average of two years' work, we found that we had $17.50 per 

 head more profit from the standard ration of corn and the clover hay and 

 the silage, supplemented by the standard supplement products, cottonseed 

 meal and linseed oil meal, than we had from using the commercial sup- 

 plement products that were used in this test, namely, alfalfa and mo- 

 lasses meals. We are growing alfalfa on the farms of Iowa to an in- 

 creasing extent each year, and clover hay has always been grown to a 

 greater or less extent; and we find that the supplements of the more 

 concentrated kinds in combination with the foodstuffs of the farm have 

 given better results and a wider margin of profit shown in these two 

 years than by using the supplements that come largely in the form of 

 ground alfalfa and the molasses feeds. 



It do«s not follow that those commercial foods can not be used profit- 

 ably under any conditions. I don't wish to be understood as making that 

 assertion, but I am giving you results of the tests that we have made 

 along this line, and probably this alone, if kept in mind by the feeders, 

 would result in the saving of millions of dollars or adding millions of 

 dollars of profit annually to the feeding. 



And then a good deal of attention has been attracted by the advertis- 

 ing of molasses foods and the recommendation of molasses foods in re- 

 cent years. We have been testing out molasses as a supplement to corn 

 in the feeding lots of the state, and while molasses food has undoubted 

 value it has not given results to indicate that it has appreciably any more 

 worth per pound than corn, and the prevailing market price is a good deal 

 higher than corn. The conclusion is that unless it can be bought at 

 about the price of corn, it will not be profitable to use very much of it in 

 commercial cattle feeding. 



We have found, too, that the increased use of clover and alfalfa and 

 of soy beans, where the beans are grown on the farm and the entire plant 



