General Problems in Beef Production. 



331 



tines and kidneys. Fat intimately mingled with the muscular fibers 

 o£ the lean tissues renders such meat tender, juicy, and toothsome. 

 Placed in separate masses anywhere about the body, and especially 

 within the body cavity, it has but low value. Such storage is doubt- 

 less best for animals whose function is milk production, but it is cer- 

 tainly against their highest usefulness for beef. In this second char- 

 acteristic, which sets beef animals somewhat apart from dairy ani- 

 mals, we have a remarkable example of specialization for a definite 

 end, and this lesson is important and far-reaching. 



518. Proportion of valuable parts. — Georgeson of the Kansas 

 Station^ and Wilson and Curtiss of the Iowa Station- closed breed 

 feeding trials by forwarding the animals to Swift & Company, Pack- 

 ers, who reported the following percentages of cuts in the dressed 

 carcasses : 



There is nothing in the figures to show that the carcasses of steers 

 of the beef breeds yield a noticeably larger proportion of the high- 

 priced cuts. Nor can it be otherwdse ; for the framework of animals 

 of the different types can vary but little in the proportion of the 

 several parts. Thin-fleshed steers do not cut up percentagely much 

 different from those yielding thick-fleshed cuts. These thick-fleshed 

 cuts, however, command a much higher price per pound than do the 

 thin-fleshed cuts, thereby giving to the carcass that furnishes them a 

 marked advantage in the market. 



519. Judgment of the market. — The 18 steers representing 9 

 breeds fattened by the Iowa Station, as reported in Article 514, when 

 shipped to Chicago, w^ere passed upon by a committee of 3 stock 

 buyers with the results shown in the table on the next page, where 

 there is a difference between the highest and lowest valuation of $2.13 

 per ewt., or about 32 per ct. 



Bui. 51. 



= Bui. 20. 



