TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 181 



others close 1)y. ^fy experience has hcen that the condition of 

 the weather during the time they are on the train and when tliey 

 arrive has a good deal to do with the shrink. If they get in on 

 a cold, disagreeahle morning, there will he a heavy shrink; if it 

 is a nice morning, there will he a lighter shrink. 



^Ir. Arney : Theory is one of the nicest things that we have 

 to talk ahout ; practice is the thing that counts. If you are go- 

 ing to get those statistics perfectly accurate, you must have 

 special men, and they nmst sit u]) and take notice the whole 

 trip. 



President Sykes : I want to say in connection with this dis- 

 cussion that Mr. Hamilton Wilcox, who is now dead, told me 

 last summer of an experience he had in shipping a bunch of cat- 

 tle from Montana or Wyoming, where he had a ranch, to Chi- 

 cago. His caretaker took a report blank with him. They were 

 delayed on the road — I think three days over the time which they 

 should have occupied in reaching Chicago. AVhile his caretaker 

 probably didn't fill out the report w^th absolute accuracy, it was 

 accurate enough for the court to accept it as evidence, and Mr. 

 Wilcox secured a verdict against the C, B. & Q. railroad of 

 $650. Of course we don't suppose the caretaker sat up all the 

 way from Wyoming to Chicago, but Mr. Wilcox's lawyer told 

 me that if it had not been for that report furnished by this as- 

 sociation he never would have won out in that case. So it might 

 be of value to you in a damage case. 



Mr. Thornburg : Who weighs the cattle when they land in 

 Chicago ? 



Mr. Downing : AVe have a man assigned there who makes it 

 his business. I wire him the numbers of the cars, the train, and 

 the leaving time, so he looks out for them, and as soon as they 

 reach there they are weighed, regardless of the time of night. 



Air. Ritgers: I have a question that I would like to put to 

 this association. I suppose probably nearly all the men here are 

 feeding cottonseed meal in some form. Last winter I fed what 

 is called the fine meal. I objected to handling it because it was 

 nasty on the clothing and blew away pretty badly, and I at- 

 tempted this fall to get something different ; but the only thing 

 I could get was so coarse that the cattle didn't masticate it suffi- 

 ciently to get it digested. I tried to get meal that is crushed to 

 the consistency of shelled corn, but they all told me they didn't 

 have such a thing. I also found that silage-fed cattle don't mas- 



