146 



BEEF PRODUCTION 



as to the relative selling qualities of eattle kept clean and 

 those feci in muddy lots. In the six months extending 

 from Nov. 28, 1903, to June 1, 1904, the Experiment 

 Station referred to fed a carload of choice 2-year-old 

 steers on a paved lot and another carload of the same 

 grade of steers in an ordinary mud lot. Of course both 

 lots were fed the same ration, and all conditions, save the 

 matter of the surface of the feed lot, were the same. 

 When marketed in Chicago the steers fed in the mud 



Fig. 15. Bunk in which to feed grain to cattle, with platform 

 approach. In use by J. li. Fulkerson, Jerseyville, 111. 



lot sold for 10 cents per hundredweight less than those 

 having access to the paved lot. This was due to their 

 dirty appearance and not to any inferiority of finish 

 which they possessed, for strange as it may seem, the 

 paved lot did not seem to make it possible to make larger 

 or cheaper gains, considering the steers by themselves. 

 The pigs following the steers having access to the paved 

 lot, however, made nearly one pound more of pork per 

 bushel of corn fed the steers than did those following the 

 steers fed in the ordinary mud lot. In other words, 

 while the pork produced by the pigs following the "mud 

 lot steers" paid for only 12.86 per cent of the total feec 1 

 fed to steers, the pigs following the "paved lot steers '' 

 paid for 16.67 per cent. 



