— 8 — 
ions differ as to whether it can with profit ever become the 
pi incipal method ot handling them. Colorado is not a corn 
state, and it looks reasonable that it should be cheaper to 
ship the steer to the corn producing districts rather than to 
ship the corn west to Colorado and then the fattened steers 
eastward. It has so far proved profitable to bring in corn 
01 sheep feeding; but this success is largely due to the 
Colorado climate and the possession of large amounts of 
cheap alfalfa that cannot be fed to the sheep unless 
it is accompanied with grain. The problem with 
steers is somewhat different. Alfalfa alone can be 
fed to steers and they will make a reasonable growth. 
1 he question before the feeder is, whether, if grain is fed in 
addition, they will grow enough faster and sell for enough 
more per pound to pay for the grain and leave a fair mar- 
gm of profit for the extra risk. Incidentally there ccmes in 
the additional fact that the alfalfa is raised on the farm 
while the grain will usually have to be purchased with money 
advanced by the banks at a high rate of interest. 
, few r ? gu ^ es win show the conditions of the two 
methods of feeding. Steers are usually bought in the fall 
with a three per cent, shrink and sold in the spring with a 
four per cent, shrink. In the fall of 1895 cattle off the 
iange if of good quality, sold for about $2.85 per hundred 
pounds live weight. A i,cco-pound steer would therefore 
costone thousand pounds, less three per cent, shrink or 
970 times. $2.85, 01 $27.65. A good steer on hay alone 
should gain a pound a day in live weight. At the end of a 
hundred days feeding, the steer would weigh i,ico pounds 
and sell with a four per cent, shrink, or 1,056 pounds. The 
steer will have eaten and wasted about two tons of hay, s G 
that it sold for one-half a cent a pound more than it 
cost, it would return $3.86 per ton for the hay. Each ten 
cents increase, or decrease, in the selling price makes a dif¬ 
ference of fifty cents per ton in the amount realized for the 
hay. 
When steers are grain fed to make beef of them they 
are ted the first sixty days on hay and the next ninety on 
hay and grain. The grain feeding in connection with alfalfa 
will seldom go higher than eight pounds of grain per day 
pen Head and this maximum amount will be reached by the 
middle of the grain feeding period. This gives six 'hun¬ 
dred pounds of grain for each steer. The grain takes the 
place of some of the hay, so that in the whole five months, 
the steel eats and wastes about three tons of hay. The 
giowth should average about a pound and a half a day for 
