176 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



President Sykes: We have with us our friend, ]\Ir. Downing, 

 who has addressed us for the last two years, and I know you all 

 want to hear him. Some of you didn't have the pleasure of listen- 

 ing to him last year, and we are going to give him a few minutes 

 to show himself to the boys. By the way, he is an Iowa ])oy. now 

 in Uncle Jim's department down at Washington. 



THE SHRINK ON CATTLE. 



Mr. Downing: i\Ir. President and Gentlemen of the Associa- 

 tion : We are trying to do some work that I thought would be 

 of interest to you people, and, incidentally. I want to ask a little 

 assistance of you while I am here. 



The railroads and the shippers have never had any basis upon 

 which they could adjust claims for shrinkage. The railroads 

 would not undertake to ascertain what constituted the normal 

 shrink of cattle, because they knew very well that the shippers 

 would not accept their figures; and the shippers wouldn't under- 

 take it because they knew the railroads wouldn't take their fig- 

 ures. So they asked the Secretary of Agriculture if he would 

 find out for them what is a normal shrink of cattle en route to 

 market. The Bureau of Animal Industry was given the task, 

 and I was assigned to assist in the matter. They sent a man to 

 Texas last year, who weighed cattle from points in that state to 

 the various southwestern markets. This fall we started out in 

 the range country, in Wyoming and Montana, and weighed the 

 range cattle from the various points in those two states to the 

 Omaha, Chicago and South St. Paul markets. A little later on 

 I came down into the sandhills of Nebraska, with headiiuarters 

 at Alliance, and have just completed the work of weighing cattle 

 from that district to market. I am going to move today to 

 Boone, Iowa, and have my headquarters there, and will Avork 

 through the northern half of Iowa for a couple of months, at 

 least. In the meantime (probably aliout the first of Fe'iruary), 

 we expect to get some cattle at Billings, INlont., and Sterling, 

 Colo., where they have sugar beet factorii's and are fattening 

 cattle on sugar beet pulp and alfalfa hay. We will get some 

 samples of that kind of feeding, and take the shrink on shipping 

 them to market. Last fall we secured some figures on cattle fat- 

 tened on cottonseed hulls in Oklahoma and southern Kansas. 

 Later on in the spring we expect to make records on cattle, in 

 Illinois and Indiana — likewise in Town-lliat hav!' hwu fattened 



