COMPARISON OF ROUGHAGES FOR FATTENING STEERS. 3 
Since the cooperative cattle-feeding work was started between the 
Bureau and the Alabama experiment station, there has been a 
growing demand for more definite information concerning the cost 
of growing or raising cattle and fattening them for the market. In 
many cases the cooperative experimental work has been the absolute 
foundation for building up the cattle industry in certain sections. 
Many of the cooperative experiments were conducted to determine 
what concentrates and combinations of concentrates were most desir- 
able to use for fattening steers and calves for the markets The 
tests reported herein were conducted to determine the comparative 
value of some of the more common farm-grown and commercial 
roughages for fattening steers. Cottonseed meal was the sole con- 
centrate used in each of the experiments. 
In times gone by cottonseed hulls were the principal and the 
cheapest roughage used by farmers of the South, but the price of 
hulls has advanced to such a degree that few farmers can afford to 
feed them. Then, too, where diversified farming has been taken up 
more forage is produced upon the farms, and many of the progres- 
sive live-stock farmers of the South have one or more silos and are 
producing much corn silage, corn stover, and leguminous hays upon 
the farm. 
The importation of pure-bred beef bulls in large numbers in every 
State of the South emphasizes the importance of the growing beef- 
cattle industry, and with the prevailing high prices of meat animals 
there has never been a time when studies of various methods of fat- 
tening beef cattle were of more importance to the farmers of the 
South. 
The first experiment reported in this bulletin was conducted in 
cooperation with the Alabama experiment station in western Ala- 
bama; the others were conducted in Mississippi in cooperation with 
the State experment station. 
