PRINCIPLES OF LIVESTOCK BREEDING. 
59 
muscle, while the purebred, after a more rapid early growth, matured 
earlier and turned to fattening with greater facility. There was an 
important difference in the amount of feed just necessary to keep the 
animals from losing weight, the scrub requiring about 19 per cent 
more feed for this purpose. The purebred, moreover, was able to 
consume and utilize a larger amount of concentrated feed above his 
maintenance requirement than the scrub, the same difference, it 
will be recalled, as that between a good and a poor dairy cow. 
These advantages may appear impossible to reconcile with the 
lack of difference in gains or cost per pound of gain. The explana- 
tion is that the purebred packed more food value into a pound of 
gain. A pound of his meat contained a great deal more fat and 
Fig. 18.— Yorkshire boar, illustrating the bacon type of hog. 
practically as much protein, but very much less water. Thus a 
pound of meat from the purebred was not merely of higher quality, 
because of the superior marbling with fat, but really contained 40 
per cent more food value. Thus under the same conditions a pound 
of meat from a properly finished purebred is no more comparable 
with a pound from a scrub than is a pound of rich milk with a pound 
of low-testing milk. 
Thus the important qualities which breeders have developed in the 
breeds of beef cattle are the blocky conformation with the greatest 
development of the more valuable cuts and the smallest amount of 
waste; the low maintenance requirement which results from a placid 
disposition ; the rapid but soon completed growth in bone and muscle, 
in which large size is combined with early maturity; and, finally, ease 
of fattening. 
