Grading up Beef Cattle at Sni-a-Bar Farms 11 
COMPARISON OF TWO TYPICAL LOTS 
Besides the figures already shown, it is of interest also to con- 
sider smaller groups that are known to be strictly comparable. The 
marketing of July 28, 1922, when two lots were sold, is such an 
instance. One lot consisted of 5 steers of common breeding, the 
best of the steers from some foundation cows purchased in 1920. 
The other group was a car lot of 15 head of first, second, and third 
cross steers. 
The steers in the two lots were almost exactly the same age. All 
had been born on Sni-a-Bar Farms, had run in the same pastures, 
and had been fed together. 
- The steers of common breeding averaged 947 pounds, whereas 
those sired by purebred bulls averaged 1,117 pounds, a difference 
of 170 pounds. The common steers brought $8.75 a hundredweight 
on the same market at which the steers sired by purebred bulls sold 
for $10.50. The common lot sold for $1.75 a hundredweight under 
the top market price; the other brought the top price, a difference 
of $17.50 for a 1,000-pound steer. 
A part of this difference in weight and selling value was due to 
the fact that the steers of unknown breeding were not finished, not- 
withstanding they had had exactly the same opportunity as those 
of better breeding that were finished. One of the important advan- 
tages of well-bred animals is the rapidity with which they gain 
and the earliness with which they are ready for market, in both of 
which ways production costs were lowered. 
THE WORTH OF A GOOD BULL 
Records of the sale of Sni-a-Bar steers furnish a dependable guide 
for estimating the value of a good bull. It is seen from Table 3 
that the first-cross steers marketed, taken altogether, brought $2 a 
hundredweight more than if they had been of the same quality and 
breeding as the original steers. Since the dams of the two lots of 
calves were essentially the same and the methods of feeding and 
marketing were identical, the difference of $2 a hundredweight in 
their value, on the basis of the same live weight, may be fairly at- 
tributed to the superiority of the purebred sires used at Sni-a-Bar 
Farms to those used on the farms from which the foundation cows 
were purchased. 
Assuming the low average of 1,000 pounds live weight for the ani- 
mals, an increase of $2 a hundredweight in the value at marketing 
time of the offspring of a purebred bull brings an increased value 
of $240 a year on a crop of 12 calves, making the fair assumption 
that the heifers improved equaily with the steers. That is practically 
the increase in return on the capital invested in a bull, for the cost 
of keeping a grade bull is not essentially different from that of keep- 
ing a purebred animal. 
Probably the greatest preventable loss in American animal pro- 
duction is in the low quality of the sires used. In no other phase of 
animal husbandry is it possible to make such direct, such marked, 
and such profitable improvement at such slight cost as in the use 
,of superior purebred sires. 
