34 BULLETIN 1150, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
they will give their stock proper treatment prior to shipment, rather than 
stuffing, salting, or using other devices for securing a fraudulent home weight 
or an excessive fill at the market.° 
The question of prorating at home presents somewhat the same 
problems as grading. No doubt commission firms in most cases are 
better equipped than the shipping associations to do this work. On 
the other hand, inasmuch as the alert manager insists on checking 
the work anyway, he can with but little extra effort make the original 
calculations. Too frequently, because of the dependence upon the 
commission firm to do this work, the local management is unaware 
of the methods used or the problems involved. A critical knowledge 
of these methods and problems is essential to progress in realizing 
the ideal of the shipping association, namely, to obtain for each 
shipper what his live stock is actually worth less the cost of market- 
ing it. 
Conditions are gradually becoming more favorable for grading and 
prorating at home. Managers and officers are acquiring experience, 
and the development of the local association in many States seems 
to be in the direction of consolidating the business under fewer and 
better qualified managers. The work of prorating would be greatly 
facilitated by the adopticn of a uniform system of records and the 
use of labor-saving devices, such as calculating machnes, computation 
tables, and suitable printed working forms and permanent records. 
PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN PRORATING. 
Much of the success of a shipping association depends upon 
whether the shrinkage and expenses are charged and the returns dis- 
tributed fairly among the different shippers. Prorating, or the 
calculation of the returns due the individual shippers, is therefore 
one of the most important operations to be performed in the manage- 
ment of a shipping association. 
Prorating Hapa the following problems: (1) Distributing 
shrinkage; (2) distributing the gross amount among the different 
grades of live stock when a carload of mixed grades is sold for a lump 
sum; (3) dividing the expense among the different kinds of stock in 
a mixed car; (4) prorating when a shipment consists of more than 
one car; (5) distributing the total expenses among the individual 
shippers according to the live stock shipped by each. 
Distributing shrinkage—The usual practice in distributing 
shrinkage is to charge cattle with their indivdual shrinkage, which 
of course, necessitates obtaining individual weights at home as well 
as at the market. In the case of hogs, calves, and sheep, however, 
the usual practice is to prorate the total shrinkage on some uniform 
basis, preferably so much per 100 pounds. 
Shrinkage is sometimes prorated on the head basis, which method 
is equitable only when the animals included are of approximately 
uniform size and weight. When the shrinkage differs for different 
grades of animals, as, for instance, between good butcher hogs and 
packers, the rate for each grade showing a marked difference should 
be calculated separately. As already noted in the foregoing, any 
lots of animals which may unduly influence the average shrinkage 
® Cooperative Live Stock Shipping in Iowa in 1920, by E. G. Nourse and C. W. Ham- 
mans, lowa Agr. Exp. Sta. Bul. No. 200. 
