152 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



The outdoor method of feeding was adopted by Mr. Hord 

 as a permanent policy. His feed lots held from 200 to 300 

 cattle, being ten to fifteen acres in area. In the center of each 

 lot was a house to shelter the swine that followed each group 

 of steers, but the cattle themselves had only a win4 break on 

 the north and west, usually a board fence or a line of straw- 

 stacks. Overflow water from the cattle tanks was piped to the 

 hog troughs and great racks capable of handling a two days' 

 supply of roughage were placed on the west side of the lots 

 for additional shelter. Practically no summer feeding was done, 

 and each spring, as a sanitary precaution, the lots were plowed, 

 planted to corn and thoroughly tilled, to make them clean for 

 the following feeding period. 



Only mature cattle were handled, Mr. Hord's ideal being the 

 three-year-old. In order to make as certain of this as possible, 

 no cattle were put in his lots that weighed under 1,000 pounds. 

 On December 31, 1904, he had 18,000 such steers in his lots, 

 with a few hundred additional that were un-der that weight 

 which ran as stockers. Large numbers of plain steers were pur- 

 chased at around three cents a pound, and he obtained a spread 

 of three to three and a half cents in marketing. He began cut- 

 ting his cattle when they had been on feed ninety days, market- 

 ing those with sufficient flesh on them, and he cut again in 120 

 to 150 days, closing all out at six months. Yet his cattle always 

 came to the market finished, he never believed in the warming- 

 up process. So uniform was his product that whole trainloads 

 run through to Chicago, were often sold on their reputation 

 before they reached the market. 



Mr. Hord based his success in feeding operations on doing 

 exactly the opposite of what the run of feeders did. If they 

 bought and fed lightly, he would plunge heavily; when they 

 indulged he abstained. He was a notable judge of men, picking 

 highly trustworthy associates and employees. He believed in 



