he buys his cattle by weight and has, therefore, an accurate 

 knowledge of the cattle at the time he begins his feeding opera- 

 tions. He always sells by weight and has, therefore, the weight 

 of his cattle at the close, and can easily determine quite accu- 

 rately the gain. Furthermore in many instances, he buys a 

 large portion, and frequently all of the feed used, which en- 

 ables him to determine with a fair degree of accuracy the 

 amount of food consumed. These are the necessary data, of 

 course, for reliable conclusions as to the outcome of his feeding 

 operations. 



Fourth, the professional feeder is of necessity more or less 

 of an experimenter. He is forced by the varying supply of 

 different kinds of feed to vary the material fed from season to 

 season, and thus one season while he may naturally prefer a 

 certain grain or hay the supply is inadequate or the price is too 

 high, and he adopts another. Normally he might prefer to feed 

 his corn whole, but the price may be such as to warrant him in 

 grinding it, and so on throughout the entire range of steer 

 feeding. The state of the feeder market will justify his feeding 

 three or four years olds in one season, heifer calves in another, 

 and so on. Thus his experience is forced, so to speak, to take 

 a very wide range in the quality and condition of cattle fed, 

 and in the kind, condition and quality of feed used. 



These considerations therefore would seem to justify us in 

 giving to the conclusions of these men the greatest weight. 

 That is, the difference between two or more methods or prac- 

 tices, when large, may be safely assumed to have already been 

 discerned by the practical man, by reason of his exceptional fa- 

 cilities for securing accurate data already pointed out, and 

 furthermore because of his capacity for close observation and 

 sound reasoning. 



On the main questions involved in the economical and prof- 

 itable production of beef, the men with such extensive exper- 

 ience as have contributed to the contents of this bulletin may 

 be considered as safe advisers, and a theory that runs counter 

 to the conclusions of these men or to a long established prac- 

 tice should be well considered and should show the support of 

 rather extensive and accurate experimental data before being 

 accepted. 



