152 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 
The outdoor method of feeding was adopted by Mr. Horp 
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 wind 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. Horp’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 under 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. Horp 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 
