10 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTMRE. 



the cattle for a certain period, usually two years for natives, and three years 

 for rangers, on grass and coarse feed on the farm or range, after which they 

 are placed on a grain ration for a length of time, and made ready for the 

 market. The first item, then, in the feeding problem is the cost of steers at 

 this period; second, the price of corn, and other feeds used; third, the cost 

 of transportation; fourth, what the steer sells for in the market. At this 

 point the producer steps out of the problem and returns home to count his 

 profit or loss, as the case may be. 



As great changes have been made in the industrial world, so have there 

 been equally as great in the consumptive department. A few years ago 

 corn was the only fattening feed used here in the West; now the feed yards 

 and farms must handle all manner of "by products." Corn has become an 

 article of necessity in the old world. The feeder of today must be able to 

 compete with the export and manufacturing demand in the price of corn, 

 when securing supplies for his feed yard. Twenty years or so ago a feeder 

 could buy his corn for eighteen to twenty-five cents. In recent years, and 

 particularly the last two, he has paid from thirty to sixty, or more than 

 double the former price. When you know that an eleven hundred pound 

 steer will consume twenty-eight pounds of corn a day, or its equivalent, and 

 that it will take from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty days, 

 and in many instances a good round year to place him on the market you begin 

 to realize that it costs something to make a fat animal. Taking, then, the 

 first item of expense in the feed yard, the price paid for 1,000 to 1,200 pound 

 feeders, I find that from January to May, 1902, heavy feeders of good 

 quality cost 4i cents per pound, and sold in the market at $6.50 to $6.75, 

 that the price of corn fed these cattle during this feeding period, cost 

 approximately one cent per pound. In this same year I find that I paid for 

 one drove of feeders bought in the Chicago market, in the last days of 

 August, $5.25 to $5.50 per hundred; one drove of Dakota cattle, $5 25 F. O. B. 

 feed yard; on September 3d, in Kansas City, one drove, $5.20; on Septem- 

 ber 10th, in Chicago again, a drove of North Dakotas, $4.70. In sixty 

 days from the time of the first purchase, I began marketing these cattle at 

 $7.30 per hundred weight, and from that price down, according to the 

 length of time held after the 29th day of October, 1902. You ask why I 

 select this date as a landmark in the price of cattle? It is in accordance 

 with certain convictions I have regarding the trend of the market, and the 

 reasons governing the same, but without other proofs than circumstantial 

 evidence, but evidence, which to my mind is sufficient to warrant such 

 conclusions. You who are familiar with stock yard practices know, that 

 every feeder was encouraged early in the season of 1902, to do as large a 

 'business as possible. Every assurance was given him of getting a good 

 market as the season advanced. Rumor gave a report that certain inde- 

 pendent and competitive industries located at the stock yards were to be 

 whipped into line during the season in order that market values could be 

 better maintained in the future. In plain terms, it was understood that the 

 "Big Four" would have no interference with their business, and that ihey 

 intended to whip competition into an agreerent by the use of usual busi- 

 ness methods. 



That the prices established during the early season of this year were 

 beneficial to the producer, for a short time at least, is true, but on the 29th 



