FEEDING BEEF CATTLE 261 
Cattle Markets.—The largest central cattle markets in the 
country were located in 1910 as follows: Chicago (over 3,000,000 
cattle received during the year), Kansas City (2,250,000), Omaha 
and St. Louis (both about 1,250,000), Fort Worth, Texas, New 
York, and St. Joseph, Mo. (decreasing, in the order given, from 
1,000,000 to 500,000). Other important cattle markets are St. 
Paul, Sioux City, Denver, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, etc. 
The relative importance of these markets will doubtless change with 
the further development of our cattle industry, since cattle markets 
follow in the wake of the producing areas; western cattle markets 
have developed rapidly during the last few decades, while the 
eastern markets have in general declined.” 
Shrinkage of Cattle.—When cattle are sold a certain deduction 
is generally made for the “shrink” in weight between the place 
where sold and marketed. This allows for the loss in weight that 
occurs during transportation, and varies according to the distance 
travelled and methods of transportation, as well as the system of 
feeding and handling of the cattle prior to shipping. The shrinkage 
is generally figured at 3 to 4 per cent. On a 1000-pound steer this 
will mean a deduction of 30 or 40 pounds for which no pay is 
received. The United States Department of Agriculture, in recent 
investigations of the shrinkage in weight of beef cattle in transit,® 
made careful studies of the various factors that influence the shrink- 
age. It was found that the shrinkage of range cattle in transit 
over 70 hours during a normal year is from 5 to 6 per cent of their 
live weight. If they are in transit 36 hours or less, the shrinkage 
will range from 3 to 4 per cent of their live weight. The shrinkage 
of fed cattle does not differ greatly from that of range cattle for 
equal periods of time. It varied from about 3 per cent with all of 
the silage-fed cattle and 4.2 per cent with the corn-fed cattle when 
both classes of these animals were in transit for less than 36 hours, to 
5.4 per cent for the pulp-fed cattle which were in transit from 60 
to 120 hours. 
The Spread or Margin.—The profit in beef raising depends 
not only on the gains made by steers during fattening period, but 
fully as much on the price at which the steers are bought and sold. 
The difference in the latter two figures is known as “spread ” or 
“margin”; this is given per hundredweight or pound. If feed- 
ing cattle are bought at, say, 6 cents a pound and sold at the end 
of the fattening period at 7 cents, there is a margin of 1 cent per 
7 Tllinois Circular 169. § Bulletin 25. 
