52 Western Live-stock Management 
rectly to the butcher or packer, we seldom speak of a 
separate process of fattening; but when these range 
steers are taken to the farms, put into feed lots, and 
kept on full feed for a few months, we speak of ‘fatten- 
ing” them, and the men who carry on this business are 
called “feeders.” In some localities the business is car- 
ried on primarily with the idea of fattening cattle, which 
would otherwise be in unsalable condition. More com- 
monly, however, it is conducted with the idea of market- 
ing surplus feeds. The larger part of the feeding takes 
place in the Corn-Belt, but a considerable amount is done 
in the irrigated portions of the West. Since the feed used 
in the West is almost always alfalfa, the feeder is usually 
a farmer who grows a quantity of alfalfa for which he 
must find some market, hence he buys steers in the fall 
and fattens them during the winter and sells them when 
fat. Many of these feeders buy all the steers they feed 
and do not raise any cattle at all. Such feeders may 
have no pasture land or range. The fattening of cattle 
is usually confined to the larger irrigated valleys which 
produce a surplus of alfalfa which is not needed for win- 
tering stock or for shipment to the cities. The details of 
the feeding business will be taken up in Chapter V. 
