THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART II. (>5- 



This is due largely to the fact that the men who breed the cattle have 

 been accustomed to receiving a certain price for animals of the various 

 ages with little or no discrimination so far as quality is concerned. All 

 two-year-olds brought about the same price, thus there was not much 

 encouragement for the breeder who spent money in securing valuable 

 sires. We are glad to note a decided change in favor of the man who 

 breeds good cattle. The feeders are acting wisely when they are willing 

 to recognize good blood and quality by paying more for the same. It 

 is certainly most gratifying to receive a letter from a commission mer- 

 chant stating that he is about to receive a bunch of cattle from a cer- 

 tain ranch where nothing but the best of pure bred sires have been used 

 for a certain period of years. Range cattle are no longer being sold as 

 just "range stuff." They are being graded and sold on their merits. 

 When this policy is universally adopted the results will be far reaching. 

 It will mean better markets for our surplus bulls, better feeders for 

 the corn belt farmer to put in his feed lot and last and most important 

 of all, a much better market through which the farmer may dispose 

 of his corn crop. 



Success in any line of work is largely governed by the methods pur- 

 sued at the beginning. This is especially true in the production of beef. 

 There is no other one feature of the business quite so important as to have 

 the right kind of an animal. An animal possessing the desired form 

 combined with plenty of quality. Bear in mind that width of back, loin 

 and hindquarters are indispensable in the good steer. The three factors 

 which determine the selling price of the steer on any of our leading 

 markets are percentage ; that is, per cent, of dressed weight to live 

 weight; quality, that is, a thick covering of good flesh over back and 

 loin; and proportion, which means as much weight as possible in the 

 back, loin and hindquarters where the high priced cuts are to be found. 



Having secured the right kind of an animal the next and most es- 

 sential point is how to secure the greatest gain in weight at the very 

 lowest cost. When feed stuffs were low in price and labor was high the 

 feeder acted wisely when he economized labor at the expense of feed. 

 With corn ranging from forty to fifty cents per bushel he can no longer 

 follow such methods. It is now a question of economizing in feed. Tl e 

 feeder must get more pounds of gain from a bushel of corn than he has 

 ever done in the past. In this respect there is a great need for inves- 

 tigations pertaining to the advisability or nonadvisability of feeding 

 lighter grain rations. If fifteen or eighteen pounds of corn per steer per 

 day will give as good results as twenty-five and thirty pounds of the 

 same, it certainly would be much more economical for the feeder to 

 adopt such methods. Feeding experiments conducted at the Minnesota 

 Station and at the Ontario Agricultural College with light, medium and 

 heavy meal rations for fattening steers have shown the medium and 

 light rations to be much more economical than the heavy rations. In 

 these experiments, however, the gains calculated were those made by 

 the cattle alone, as there were no hogs to utilize that part which the 

 steer did not assimilate. With our present methods of feeding we are 



