120 TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 



petition on that day's market and by the price paid; in other 

 words, supply and demand largely determine the limits of each 

 class. For example, certain steers received at the market are 

 of a type and carry a degree of fleshing which place them at 

 about the dividing line between stockers and feeders on the one 

 hand and fat steers on the other. The class these steers will 

 make will depend on who will bid the highest for them. If 

 there is a big run of feeders that day and not many fat steers, 

 the fat cattle buyers will probably bid higher for them than 

 anyone else, and so they go as fat steers. If the fat steer market 

 is dull and the feeder market active, they will in all probability 

 be sold as feeders. 



Fig. 35. Common or Inferior Feeder. 



There is the same indefinite line of division between the 

 poorest grade of butcher cows and the best grade of cutters. 

 The former shade off by degrees into the latter. Cows may sell 

 one day as butcher cows that would sell the next day as cutters, 

 depending on the fluctuations in supply and demand. It is 

 again impossible to fix absolutely the line of division between 

 cutters and canners. One merges with the other. Likewise 

 stockers and feeders cannot be sharply separated. Butcher 

 bulls and bologna bulls furnish still another example. It is 

 possible that an animal might be almost equally eligible to three 

 classes. For instance, a heifer of a certain type and degree of 



