

Economical Rations in Beef Production, 5 



lowed year after year with careful buying and the exercise 

 of skill in the management of cattle, particularly with refer- 

 ence to the selection and use of foods, fair profits are to be 

 depended upon. 



Nebraska, relatively speaking, is a newly settled State, the 

 eastern half being occupied by farmers who have been giving 

 most of their attention to the growing and selling of grain. 

 It is not at all surprising, therefore, to find that as the need 

 of stock on the farm is felt mistakes will be made and what 

 might have been profits are really losses. That the Experi- 

 ment Station might be brought in closer touch with actual 

 conditions, as they exist in this State, the writer in the early 

 spring of 1903 visited a large number of feed lots to learn 

 what rations were in common use. In this investigation it 

 was found that by far the largest number were fattening 

 steers on corn and prairie hay, tho some were making use of 

 straw, cane or millet as a substitute for prairie hay. In the 

 more central and western portions of the State corn and al-' 

 falfa were being fed, while a number in the Missouri Kiver 

 counties were feeding clover. The use of oil-meal and cotton- 

 seed-meal was confined to a few men who feed on an extensive 

 scale and who buy practically all their grain. From the ob- 

 servations made it would be conservative to say that unbal- 

 anced rations were being fed on two-thirds of the farms vis- 

 ited. That our farmers might have a practical demonstration 

 of thi* greater possibilities of a system of cattle feeding which 

 is more nearly in harmony with Nature's laws Avith respect 

 to the character of the food as opposed to a system which 

 ignores entirelv tho animal's physiological requirements, the 

 series of experiments herein described were conducted under 

 conditions precisely as they may be found on many farms in 

 the State. 



PLAN OF EXPERIMENTS. 



The steers selected for all experiments were grown under 

 range conditions, having had no grain previous to their pur- 



