310 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



standpoint as a plainer-bred steer, and so far as quality is concerned a 

 plainer bred steer's carcass would have sufficient quality if the steer has 

 been properly ied and ripened." Here certainly is food for thought for 

 real breeders; and by real breeders I mean, not dealers and speculators 

 who buy cattle in one sale to sell in another, perhaps before the cow 

 would have time to produce a calf, but men who buy cattle in numbers 

 sufficient to found a herd with the determination of improving certain 

 characteristics of the breed. 



Recognizing their proper functions in the live stock trade, the 

 breeder and feeder must be brought into closer relationship and work 

 more for each other's interests. Both are absolutely necessary, neither 

 one could successfully prosecute their branch of this vast and growing 

 industry without the other. Intelligent co-operation is always to be pre- 

 fered to coertion. 



Finally, farmers and feeders should not, and probably do not, look 

 upon breeders as waiting and watching for their scalps; and on the 

 other hand the breeders should not, and doubtless do not look upon 

 farmers and feeders as their possible victims. 



THE MOST PROFITABLE TYPE OF BEEF STEER. 



W. L. Schubert, Rockport, Missouri. 

 (Missouri Bulletin, State Board of Agriculture.) 



An animal to be most profitable for a beef steer must be an early 

 maturing one, one that fattens quickly, and lays on lots of flesh. In order 

 to lay on flesh the animal must have a form which has plenty of room for 

 flesh. This form must, therefore, be broad, square and blocky. Also to 

 lay on much flesh the steer must be a good feeder, one that will eat lots 

 of food and utilize that food for making flesh. To get an animal that is a 

 good feeder we want, one that has what is known as good quality, that is 

 a loose, pliable skin covered with fine glossy hair. Why? Because it has 

 been found that animals having a loose, pliable skin covered with fine 

 glossy hair do feed better than those with a tight skin covered with 

 bristly hair. Fine, smooth bones are wanted in a profitable beef steer so 

 as to get a large per cent of flesh from him when he is dressed, and not a 

 pack of large rugged bones. A profitable beef steer must be one that will 

 lay his flesh on the parts which bring the most when sold at the butcher 

 shop. And this a steer cannot do unless he is so formed that the parts, 

 on which the best flesh is, developed so as to hold plenty of it. 



I will now endeavor to describe the qualities a profitable beef steer 

 should have and tell why they should be such. 



The head should be short and small because it does not contain any 

 valuable flesh and because a short head invariably goes with a short, 

 thick set body. 



