Convention— utilization of wastes. 
219 
Here is a fact: Did you not know that a fat animal was worth as 
much again, weight for weight, as a poor animal? To make it 
plain, suppose I buy a steer in the fall that will weigh 1.000 pounds, 
for $3 per hundred, and I add to him in weight during the winter, 
200 pounds, and the whole weight is worth $5 per hundred. I paid 
$30 and sold for $60. Now, by the other process, it has cost two- 
thirds as much to keep the breath of life in him, and he has lost 
200 pounds, and is not worth as much, weight for weight, as in the 
fall (except for the custom, trying to make a little gain the next 
summer to sell in the next fall coming, when they hope to have 
them in good order again). 
By one process a two year old can be made to weigh as much as 
the common four year old, and the two year old is worth more 
weight for weight, than the four year old, because he is a thrifry 
steer, and has never been stunted. The starving process is waste, 
the other is utilizing what there is of the animal, and making it 
available for profit. 
I cannot better illustrate this than by a little personal experi¬ 
ence. I purchased some steers this last fall, and was driving along 
the road, when a man hailed me and said he had some steers he 
wanted to sell; good ones, he said they were. He drove them up so 
I could see them. After looking them over I told him I did not 
want them. “ Why?” said he. “ Oh, they do not suit me.” He 
insisted on knowing the reason, and I told him. “ First,” said I, 
“they all have thick,horns; second, they have become stunted so 
they will never make good fattening animals.” He insisted on my 
making him an offer, and I told him I could not pay more than $2 
per hundred for such cattle. He thought that hard. I then called 
him to look at a two year old steer I had (his were four years old), 
as large as his. “ Now,” said I, “ I paid $3.50 per hundred for that 
steer, and I can make money feeding him, and could make nothing 
upon yours, as at best it would sell for only third class beef in 
market, however well fattened.” He could not see the point, and 
perhaps you cannot. 
He had neglected the essential thing at the commencement of 
the growth of his animals, a neglect that can be expressed only by 
the old-fashioned Yankee word, shiftlessness. Yes, that is it. A 
man who knows enough to go and eat his meals ought to know 
enough to remedy such an evil; yes, such a nuisance, as it may and 
