108 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



fell down in the auction ring. I sold one load for 6.50 and the 

 other for 6.30. That was no fault of the cattle. 



I like a few calves and yearlings, but I do not like to put 

 all my interest in one kind of cattle. For that reason, during 

 the spring I handle the cheaper grade cattle, and turn on shorter 

 feed. I find that these cattle have made me more money than 

 the cattle I have given high feed. If I would handle three 

 bunches of cattle on short feed, not necessarily common cattle, 

 but aged cattle, and give them short feed while I might not for 

 a certain year's experience on the whole, I would find that the 

 three bunches would make me much more money than one bunch 

 given the long feed. So that I have divided my feeding inter- 

 ests. "While I feed a bunch of calves ten or twelve months, 

 I generally put a bunch in in Februarj^ and market about May, and 

 put a bunch in in the summer and market in the fall. I find 

 cattle going on feed in the summer and the market in the fall 

 should be better quality than those in the February marketed May 

 or June. I find the difference in the selling price of a common 

 steer and the prime steer, handled under like conditions, is not 

 as great as it was in the buying price. If you buy those cattle 

 at $1 a hundred difference, when you begin the feeding period 

 you wiU find the price at the time you go on the market wiU 

 run about 40 to 60 cents difference. Of course, a well bred steer 

 makes a little the best gain, but not always, and the gain made 

 sells for a little more per hundred, but the advance, as a rule, 

 between the buying price and the selling price on these shorter 

 fed cattle, is greater on the common steer than on the prime 

 steer. 



Question: Can you state your freight rate per hundred over 

 the shrinkage. 



Mr. Emboden: My freight rate from home is about 12 cents 

 per hundred. I buy and handle a good many cattle in the spring 

 of the year and summer. Most cattle I buy at home are weighed 

 at the farms and are shrunk three per cent. That is if you 

 were feeding a bunch of cattle and I buy your cattle, I will buy 

 them, weighed on your scales, shrunk three per cent, in the 

 morning, out of the feed lot; generally weighed up before they 

 get their morning feed. If I am offering to sell to a buyer, I 

 will price him these cattle shrunk three per cent; he can weigh 

 them any time. Of course, that is not quite answering the ques- 

 tion. I find these cattle, average conditions, will shrink about 



