326 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



The weight of these cattle when ready for market is about 

 twelve hundred pounds, and their value six dollars per 

 hundred. Thus we have added one hundred per cent to 

 the original cost price, and thirty-three and a third per cent 

 to the original weight. All expense, such as freight, com- 

 missions, etc., from the feeding point in Kansas to Chicago, 

 will fall within three dollars per head. Feeders in south- 

 western Kansas are in the habit of feeding large numbers of 

 steers in a most systematic manner. They purchase their 

 cattle at about three dollars per hundred pounds on the hoof, 

 early in December, and supply them with corn so arranged 

 in cribs that they can help themselves. Water is supplied 

 by a running stream. No hay or fodder is fed, and one man 

 only is required to take care of the herd. The cattle are fed 

 until the first of May, and are estimated to consume each 

 seventy-five or eighty bushels of corn during these five 

 months. The refuse of the corn is consumed by hogs, the 

 profit on which during a successful season is estimated to 

 pay for all of the corn fed out. The cattle, when driven 

 into the feeding enclosure, have" cost from twenty-five dollars 

 to twenty-seven dollars per head ; during the feeding season 

 they have consumed fifteen dollars' worth of corn, and are 

 sold, according to the above estimates, for about seventy- 

 two dollars per head, delivered in Chicago, at a cost, as I 

 have stated, of three dollars. The profit on cattle fed in 

 this manner is easily estimated. 



But there are many cattle reaching Chicago which are 

 wholly unfit for beef, and require additional feeding for the 

 market. These cattle can usually be purchased for about 

 fifty dollars per head ; and they have been shipped to New 

 York and thence to neighboring farms at the rate of three 

 dollars per head. You will be interested in an estimate of 

 the expense of converting these animals into marketable beef, 

 as compared with the estimates I have given of feeding in 

 the West. It is evident, I think, that we cannot afford to 

 feed eighty bushels of corn, worth in the Eastern market at 

 the lowest calculation fifty cents per bushel if brought from 

 the West, and more if raised on our own farms, amounting to 

 forty-eight dollars, in order to bring a nine hundred pound 

 steer up to twelve hundred pounds. Sixteen dollars per 



