Economical Rations in Beef Production. 1 7 



were purposely kept on the same amount of grain per day for 

 the first three months, the linseed-meal steers, particularly 

 the yearlings in 1903-04, gave much larger gains. It will be 

 noted also that much less grain was required to make a pound 

 of gain each year, the average for the three years being 23 

 per cent less. This is equivalent to saying that four pounds 

 of corn with linseed-meal produced as much beef as five 

 pounds without linseed-meal. With corn averaging 35.7 

 cents per bushel and linseed-meal $28.33 per ton for the three 

 years, the cost of producing one pound of gain was 10.7 per 

 cent less by the use of the linseed-meal. The experiments 

 show the urgent need of some protein concentrate with corn 

 and prairie hay, provided its cost is not too great. Had the 

 average cost of the linseed-meal been $45.00 or more per ton 

 for the three years, there would have been no advantage in 

 using it. 



PROTEIN CONCENTRATES COMPARED. 



Having shown the importance of using with corn and prai- 

 rie hay a small quantity of some protein concentrate, in this 

 case linseed-meal, we next compare three protein foods com- 

 monly sold in Nebraska, viz., wheat bran, linseed-meal and 

 cottonseed-meal. Gluten feed, a by-product in the manufac- 

 ture of starch, glucose, etc., from corn, would have been in- 

 cluded in these tests if the cost of freight from eastern fac- 

 tories were not such as to make the price of this food 

 prohibitive for stock feeding purposes here. Just as soon as 

 starch and glucose are manufactured in quantity in this sec- 

 tion, gluten feed will no doubt become a formidable competi- 

 tor of the protein foods mentioned. Owing to the lower pro- 

 tein content of wheat bran, this food was made 22 per cent of 

 the grain ration, whereas linseed-meal and cottonseed-meal 

 were each made 10 per cent of the grain ration. It will be 

 noted in the table to follow that the basic part of each ration 

 in the first experiment was corn and prairie hay, while in the 

 second it was corn and corn-stover. 



