140 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



lands of the west, and the frames were produced on the very cheap- 

 est feed and under conditions that made it comparatively inexpen- 

 sive, the farmer or feeder could buy them and put them into the 

 feed lot and feed them out at a profit ; but when we come to grow 

 them on the farm and feed high-priced products all the time, and 

 take care of them with high-priced labor, it is altogether a different 

 problem; and, as Professor Kinzer has emphasized, we may well 

 give attention to the improvement of our stock, and I believe that 

 along that line is one of the ways in which we must emphasize the 

 importance of more economical production. 



Mr. Nicholas: It appears to me that these gentlemen don't like 

 to answer the question I ask for fear that some farmer might go 

 in and take the trophy away from the college. They go out among 

 the farmers and buy up those calves. Professor Kennedy went down 

 to Pat Donohoe, of Holbrook, and bought that calf — or had him 

 thrown in — and made a champion steer out of him. "We would like 

 to know how that was done — what feed was used. We don't care 

 whether it was done profitably; we would like to know how it was 

 done. 



Professor Curtiss: I didn't go into the details of that for this 

 reason : Naturally, of course, the methods we use in making a grand 

 champion would not be practicable in feeding steers for the ordi- 

 nary market. I may say that it was profitable to produce the steer 

 — it was highly profitable ; but naturally a very great advantage fol- 

 lows the grand champion animal. Being a young animal, the basis 

 of his ration was milk, and he had plenty of it. There isn 't any ra- 

 tion that will put a young animal forward as fast as milk, and all 

 the milk that he is capable of taking without deranging digestion. 

 Of course, it is possible to crowd too much milk into a calf, and to 

 get the ration unbalanced ; but if you are forcing a calf there is 

 nothing equal to a liberal amount of milk, and naturally that is used 

 in forcing all young animals ahead. In addition to that, we got him 

 to take just as much good feed as we could, and we fed him every- 

 thing he would eat. 



In general, I will say this in regard to feeding champion steers : 

 that we don't feed them— especially the older ones — in such a dif- 

 fert way from what you best feeders would feed your steers. We 

 aim to give them plenty of good, wholesome feed, and corn is al- 

 ways the basis of our rations. Probably, however, we do not feed 

 as large a proportion of it as the average steer feeder. We supple- 

 ment that with linseed oil meal and cottonseed meal. We use good 



