Fattening Steers 85 



each railroad division point. After arriving at the market, 

 the stock is turned over to the commission man and there 

 is little more for the feeder to do except watch the pro- 

 ceedings and learn what he can about the market. 



In the Northwest the beef cattle are practically all 

 handled either by the local butchers or through the Union 

 Stock- Yards at Portland or Seattle. About the only 

 exceptions are those cattle bought by Seattle and Tacoma 

 packing-houses, and shipped directly to those places. 

 The Portland Stock- Yards handle close to 90,000 head of 

 £attle a year. Of this amount, Oregon furnishes about 

 one-half, Montana about one-seventh, and California 

 about one-tenth. The remainder comes from various 

 parts of the West. The stock-yards in Seattle and Spo- 

 kane are new. Seattle will probably handle about as 

 many cattle as Portland, and Spokane somewhat less. 



The Oregon packing-houses now buy nearly all their 

 cattle through the Portland Stock- Yards. The Seattle, 

 Tacoma, San Francisco and Los Angeles packers, however, 

 send out regular buyers into the various feeding sections 

 and buy directly from the farmers. With the develop- 

 ment of the stock-yards industry, there has grown up a 

 class of men known as " shippers," who make it a business 

 to buy cattle from the farmer and ranch-man and then 

 ship them to some stock-yard where they are sold in the 

 open market. These men are usually able to buy this 

 stock from the farmers sufficiently cheaply to enable them 

 to make a profit. The chief reason for their existence is 

 the fact that many of the farmers and ranch-men are afraid 

 to ship to the open markets and take chances on what 

 they may receive. The shippers, however, understanding 

 conditions better and knowing about what the stock will 

 bring, are thus able to make a profit. The only logical 



