EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 551 



FEEDING AND MARKETING CATTLE. 



One thousand stockmen from Missouri, Illinois and Iowa, feeding and 

 marketing each year 2,000,000 cattle, have given to Dr. H. J. Waters, 

 dean of the Missouri agricultural college, the results of their experiences. 

 These experiences extend over a period of twenty years. Dr. Waters has 

 carefully summarized them for the use of the students and practical 

 feeders, and the results cover the entire range of feeding cattle for the 

 market in the middle west. 



"The professional feeder," said Dr. Waters, "is among the most intelli- 

 gent of farmers, is a specialist in this particular branch of agriculture, 

 has opportunities for checking up his observations and judgment with 

 accurate data that men in other lines of farming do not have. He buys 

 his cattle by weight, and has, therefore, an accurate knowledge of cattle 

 at the time he begins his feeding operations. He always sells them by 

 weight, and has, therefore, the weight of his cattle at the close and can 

 easily determine quite accurately the gain. Furthermore, he buys 

 a large portion, and frequently all of the feed used, which enable him 

 to determine with a fair degree of accuracy the amount of feed con- 

 sumed. 



As an experimenter he is forced by the varying supply of different 

 kinds of feed to vary the material fed from season to season, and hence 

 one season, while he may naturally prefer a certain kind of grain or hay 

 the supply is inadequate or the price is too high, and he adopts another. 

 Normally he may prefer to feed his corn whole, but the price may be 

 such as to warrant him in grinding it, and so on throughout the entire 

 range of feeding. These conditions justify giving the conclusions of the 

 practical feeder the greatest weight. The 1,000 men from whom the in- 

 formation has been secured include many of the largest feeders in three 

 states. 



Twenty questions were asked of the practical feeders. They included 

 questions as to the length of the feeding period, most profitable seasons 

 for feeding, winter feeding, shelters, varieties of feed, daily gain, margin 

 of cost price necessary to make profitable, age of steers, method of 

 feeding, experiences with various kinds of feed. 



Beef Steer Most Profita'ble. — The most profitable class of cattle pro- 

 duced in Missouri, according to the answers of Dr. Water's questions, 

 is the so-called dressed-beef steer, weighing from 1,200 to 1,400 pounds 

 on the market. This is primarily because of the steady and uniform de- 

 mand for cattle of this class on the market, rather than because this 

 particular age or weight of cattle were produced more cheaply than 

 lighter and younger ones. There has been during the past twenty-five 

 or thirty years a marked change in the market demands of cattle. 

 Formerly, added to the diflBculties of making the cattle fat, was the further 

 disadvantage that light weights would not bring as good a price as 

 heavier weights. 



