PROGRESSIVE BEEF CATTLE RAISING 



PART VII 



Cattle Prices 



The market has a very intimate 

 The Relation relation to beef cattle production. 

 of the Market The effects are not immediate but are 

 to the Feeding reflected from four to twelve months 

 Business later. High prices bring high receipts 



at the cattle markets, but the producer 

 saves enough females to enlarge his marketing possibilities 

 for the next year or two. On the other hand, lowering 

 prices tend to fall still lower because the producer sees 

 no hope ahead for expansion and turns females that should 

 be breeding onto a market already depressed. The most 

 successful feeders have had the best results by going just 

 contrary to inclination of the average cattleman, since 

 conditions are nearly always reversed by the time the 

 next crop of animals can be made marketable. Such a 

 feeder makes cattle the medium for marketing certain 

 portions of the farm's rough products yearly and thereby 

 makes feeding a permanent business. When returns 

 from such a system are considered over a period of years 

 it will be found that the losses of one year are absorbed 

 by the profits of another, with a reasonable margin for 

 the feeder, while his land will have been permanently 

 upbuilded by the system. Beef cattle feeding is operated 

 on as narrow a margin as obtains in any farm operation 

 and very slight fluctuations in prices may reduce profits 

 to losses or vice versa. Since such fluctuations exist 

 it is very easy for men to lose badly or to make large gains, 

 but since they are difficult to foresee, there are very few 

 cattle speculators except those close to market that have 

 been financially successful. The only real winners in the 

 beef cattle business are those who have made it an integral 

 part of their farming operation, year in and year out. 



Page Fifty-two 



