r^ss-" 28 



The cost of gain, which was greatly reduced by substituting silage 

 for clover hay, was least in Lot 3 of any of the lots fed in the two 

 trials. The necessary margin was 17 cents and seven cents per 

 cwt. for 1909-10 and 1910-11 respectively less than Lot 4 

 receiving a full feed of silage and clover which required the next 

 smallest margin to make the cattle pay for their original cost and 

 the feed. The cattle, however, did not acquire as good finish as 

 when clover hay was contained in the ration so that the profit per 

 steer was not greatly different for the two years, from that returned 

 by the rations containing both silage and clover hay. 



/The four rations indicate very strongly that the more nearly 

 the clover hay is replaced by corn silage the greater is the reduction 

 in the cost of making gains, but that for the latter half of the fat- 

 tening period, .the roughage must be limited to such amounts that 

 enough grain will be eaten to return satisfactory gains. Otherwise 

 there will be a lack of finish on the cattle that will partially or 

 entirely overcome the advantage derived from the more economical 

 gains. 



PARTH 



INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS OF COTTON- 

 SEED MEAL IN RATIONS FOR FATTENING STEERS 



The availability of corn and its cheapness compared with other 

 concentrates will make it the mainstay of the corn belt cattle feeder 

 as long as present economic conditions exist. It is well known, 

 however, that corn does not contain sufficient protein to make a 

 well balanced ration and it has been thoroughly demonstrated that 

 the judicious use of leguminous roughages and high protein con- 

 centrates as supplements to corn increases the rate of gain and may 

 decrease the cost of gain 1 . There is little or no available data, 

 however, from which the practical cattle feeder can determine the 

 amount of these high protein concentrates required to produce the 

 most economical results. This experiment station began investiga- 

 tions during the winter of 1909-10, which were planned as a step 

 toward the solution of this question. The scope of the experiment 

 was limited to the use of two different proportions of one kind of 

 nitrogenous concentrate (cottonseed meal) in two different rations. 

 Part II of this bulletin is submitted as a report of the present 

 progress of this investigation. 



1 Bulletins Nos. 115, 129, and 136 u.- , i 



