398 Feeds and Feeding. 



cattle in the stable, several thousand are fed in bunches of a 

 few hundred each on the outlying farms of the company. These 

 steers are fed grain in open boxes, supplied once or twice a day, 

 and hay from long racks filled whenever occasion requires. 



This mammoth business has from its inception been under the 

 care of Mr. E. M. Allen, General Manager of the Company, who 

 gives personal supervision to the work in all departments. From 

 a careful examination of the feeding operations as conducted at 

 the stable and the several outdoor quarters in 1890, at which 

 time over 7,000 cattle were receiving grain, the writer believes 

 the experiment of wholesale range cattle feeding at Ames has as 

 fair a trial as can possibly be given. 



Fortunately for the student, Mr. Allen has kept complete records 

 of all feeding operations from the beginning. The results are 

 an accumulation of data bearing on the question of the whole- 

 sale feeding of range cattle, which because of the magnitude of 

 the operations, the many years covered by them, and the unusual 

 care and accuracy with which the records have been kept, have 

 become invaluable to the student of animal husbandry, as well as 

 of keen interest to many who have to deal with the problem of 

 cattle-feeding at the West. 



610. The data obtained. The tables here presented give the 

 most important data of the operations at Ames down to the 

 present, covering eleven years' operations, during which time 

 49, 648 cattle have been fed. These cattle were mostly steers from 

 Wyoming and Montana ranges with some Texans and spayed 

 heifers. The cattle were four and five years old when fed. They 

 were wild when brought to the feeding station, and were unused 

 to feed and confinement. These conditions combined to make 

 the preliminary feeding period a long one, and the quantity of 

 feed required for a given gain large. Notwithstanding this the 

 operation as a whole is thoroughly representative of its class, and 

 furnishes an important and instructive lesson. l 



1 The data presented were kindly furnished by Mr. Allen. A more ex- 

 tended account of the operations is given by Coburn in the Quarterly 

 Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, December, 1897. 



