Introduction 



THE growing tendency among cattle feeders is to regard quality 

 and finish in cattle as superfluous, due to the narrowing margin 

 in price between the poorest kinds of cattle that reach the market 

 and those of best grade. The majority of feeders can remember when 

 such animals as canner cows had no value with the packer or retail 

 butcher, and the increasing uses which have been found for them, 

 sufficient to give quotable prices from day to day, have been inter- 

 preted by these feeders to mean that quality no longer has the value 

 it once enjoyed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Quality 

 cattle will always be properly appraised, because they produce the 

 class of. meat that is easiest to sell, requiring a minimum of effort 

 on the part of the ultimate salesman. 



From year to year the standards as to market types and classes 

 are changing, based on the changing demands of the consumer. 

 The cattle feeder usually learns of these changes when he sells, and 

 occasionally feels that the market asks for any kind of cattle other 

 than what he brings. The chief difficulty in meeting exactly the 

 market demands, lies in the fact that the standards of cattle of one 

 or two decades ago still persist in the minds of many feeders and are 

 perpetuated by the types of steers recognized by the majority of 

 judges in the fat stock shows. Whether or not the feeder intends 

 to do so, he carries in his mind the standard of perfection established 

 by the heavy, richly finished bullocks popular twenty years ago, and 

 he interprets the trimmer killing characteristics which modern 

 cattle show, coupled with lesser size, as distinct steps backward. 



The chief factor in bringing about the change in type has been the 

 change in retail demand. The public, while more fastidious as to 

 the cuts of beef it consumes, does not eat as much meat as it did 

 formerly, and will not tolerate the waste in cuts that the rich steaks 

 and roasts of a half century ago possessed. The modifications in 

 market standards are based on these two simple facts, and the trade 

 must educate itself to the idea. The retailer has been most sensitive 

 to this change in demand, but the reaction on the packer has been 

 so direct that he has been forced to translate immediately the 

 desires of the consumer into a type of cattle suitable for the produc- 

 tion of the best selling cuts. The principal factors that have caused 



