42 Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



product, must never be lost sight of by the breeder, feeder, or judge of 

 beef cattle. All over the body, and more especially in the back, loin, 

 and hindquarters, there should be found a uniformly deep covering of 

 flesh. The flat of the hand pressed along the shoulder, back, or side 

 should find a deep, mellow fleshing, without any patchiness or bare 

 spots. 



When mature cattle are heavily fed they thicken in their flesh, and 

 this increase in thickness is due to a mixing of fat among the muscle 

 fibers, a storing of fat between the muscles, and a laying on of fat just 

 beneath the skin. (See Fig. 9.) When studying the fleshing of an 

 animal it is well to keep in mind that the fleshing is made up partly of 

 lean meat and partly of fat. The lean meat or muscle which an animal 

 carries is often called the "natural flesh." We want as much natural 

 flesh as it is possible to obtain. When a steer is fat it is rather difficult 

 to determine how much natural flesh he has. In order to estimate this 

 it is necessary to examine the development of flesh in those parts which 

 take on very little fat, as for example the thigh, arm, and neck. Width 

 in the crops is another good indication of heavy muscling. 



The proportion of muscle in the make-up of an animal is evident 

 at birth (see Fig. 19), and feeding will not increase it beyond a very 

 narrow limit. Henry and Morrison of the Wisconsin Station ^ discuss 

 this point as follows: "Since the lean-meat tissues of the body are com- 

 posed mostly of muscular fibers, any gain in these tissues can be caused 

 solely by an increase in the number or by the thickening of these fibers. 

 The fibers increase in number by dividing lengthwise, which process 

 occurs with farm animals only while young and growing. Indeed, 

 recent investigations show that with some animals all increase in the 

 number of muscular fibers occurs before birth, the muscles of t-he new- 

 bom young containing as many as those of the mature animal. The 

 fibers of the muscles can thicken to only a limited extent, and hence 

 the muscular tissues, or lean meat, of the mature animal cannot be 

 increased beyond a relatively narrow limit, compared with the great 

 storage of fat which may occur." 



A starving animal draws upon its muscular tissue to support life, 

 and will rapidly repair its tissues upon a return to favorable conditions, 

 but from the standpoint of farm and feed-lot conditions this fact does 

 not enter into consideration and therefore does not alter the statements 

 which are here made. The only factors which the feeder has under his 

 control are growth and fatness. If the animal is mature, feeding is 

 almost exclusively a fattening process; if the animal is not mature, 

 fattening is accompanied by growth in bone and muscle. Practically 

 speaking, we can no more increase the proportionate amount of muscle 



^Feeds and Feeding, 1915, p. 75. 



