ET OO 
MARKET CLASSES AND GRADES OF LIVESTOCK 9 
direct response to demands of the consuming public. Certain classes 
of consumers still require heavyweight cuts of meat, but there is 
now a marked tendency on the part of a majority of consumers to 
demand lightweight cuts. Stockyard operatives therefore sort 
animals on the basis of weight in order to obtain cuts of meat which 
will meet these varying requirements. 
BASIS OF GRADES 
Grade.—A. grade is a subdivision of a weight selection and con- 
sists of a group of animals which differ materially from animals in 
other similar groups in the resultant of the degrees of conformation, 
finish and quality possessed. 
Grades constitute the last but by all means the most important 
subdivisions of meat animals. Grades are based on a combination 
of the three fundamental characteristics—conformation, finish and 
quality. Every meat animal possesses each of these characteristics 
but the degrees possessed vary with the individual. 
Grade is not determined by any single characteristic but is the 
resultant of all three. For example, an animal may possess a suffi- 
ciently high degree of conformation to grade good but may be so 
lacking in finish that it can not be graded higher than medium. 
No grade represents an exact point or a definite degree. On the 
contrary, each grade has a certain width with upper and lower 
limits. This means that two animals may show some variation in the 
resultant of conformation, finish, and quality and yet be placed in 
the same grade. If the variations are great, however, they will fall 
into different grades. Although each grade has a certain width and 
covers a certain range of degrees, the grade of an individual animal 
occupies a specific point within the range. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SCHEDULE 
The livestock received at any livestock market represents a wide 
variety of animals—young, old, fat, thin, highly-bred, poorly-bred, 
male, female, and unsexed—animals of almost every degree of fitness 
and unfitness, and all are dumped into the market hopper and must 
be disposed of in some manner. Some of them are highly useful for 
certain purposes but wholly useless for others. Some appeal strongly 
to certain classes of buyers but are rejected absolutely by others. 
Under these circumstances it 1s essential that this heterogeneous mass 
be sorted and divided into smaller groups. 
The chief basis for such segregation is the variety in buyers’ 
demands, but it is equally essential to the market reporter, whose 
business it is to tell the outside world just what happens on the great 
livestock markets. Naturally each buyer wants animals which will 
best serve his own peculiar needs, and the seller must meet these 
requirements by sorting his livestock on that basis. The market 
reporter must have names and terms with which to designate the 
various groups of animals sold on the market, and the reader must 
interpret these terms in the same way as the reporter. 
The schedule which follows is based on conditions existing at 
most central livestock markets. All of the groups rarely appear on 
a single market on a given day. On certain markets some of the 
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