project. We have discarded the Tanworth crosses, because they were much less efficient in the utilization of feed and in the quality of product produced, and are sticking to this Chester White cross, which is oustanding in that respect.

Mr. CANNON. The Chester with the Chester?

Mr. SHEETS. Chester upon Chester. It is a pure line of brotherand-sister matings in its inception, and we are now to a point where we believe that by concentrating or purifying, as we sometimes say, the germ plasm, that has been so fixed that those boars, for example, bred to sows of ordinary breeding would yield the result that we hoped for.

QUALITY OBTAINABLE WITHOUT EXCESS FAT

A valuable result of some of our meat studies is the finding that high quality in meat can be secured without feeding large quantities of grain or other concentrates. This is especially significant in view of the millions of acres that will be taken out of grain production and converted into the production of pasture and other roughage.

The meat trade has always assumed that the more fat a carcass carried the better the meat. That is largely true. Amount of fact is a good guide to purchasers who are not familiar with all the indications of quality. Fat meat is usually well-finished meat. There are exceptions to the rule, however. We shall be able to give consumers more value for their money as we learn more about the effects of fattening on tenderness, flavor and juiciness. Our results with 3-yearold steers fed grass alone, compared with those fed grass and a supplement of grain, is a good illustration.

This was at Lewisburg, W.Va.

The

The steers fed grain were heavier, fatter, more attractive, and dressed a higher percentage of carcass than those given only good pasture. The rib-cuts from the grain-fed steers analyzed 38.5 percent of fat, those from the other lot only 30 percent. The standard rib samples used for cooking averaged 12.5 pounds in weight from the fatter steers and only 10 pounds from the thinner cattle. In other words, there is a loss of 21⁄2 pounds which you, as a consumer, would not eat. Here is where the consumer becomes interested. 10-pound ribs contained just as many pounds of lean and protein as those weighing 2%1⁄2 pounds more, and no more bone. In other words, the food value of the ribs, excepting for the fat, was just as great in ribs that would have weighed less and cost less to buy. The palatability of the two sets of ribs was very similar. The additional fat did increase slightly the richness of the juice, but the difference was too small to offset the extra cost of those heavier ribs.

In other words, if you were cooking them for your own table, there was enough fat on the grass-fed steers to satisfy the most discriminating taste, and the extra 21⁄2 pounds which was put on by the grain feeding often does not really pay the man who put it on.

Mr. CANNON. That is one of the most valuable phases of research. Just about the close of the war, we began to handle a poor quality of steers the "yellow hammer" class, if you understand our terminology.

Mr. SHEETS. Yes; I understand.

Mr. CANNON. Which we had rationed on grass and hay and ensilage, giving them no concentrates; we followed them into the

abattoir, and after the carcasses went into the cooler we found they compared favorably with the carcasses of the corn-fed steers. Now, there has been a great diversity of opinion, and I am anxious to have your view of it. Some claim that even this class of steers should be finished with concentrates.

Mr. SHEETS. We have done some work with that. You are familiar with the station at Miles City, Mont., where we had the yearling and the 2- and 3-year-old steers.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Yes.

Mr. SHEETS. From the good blue grass of the Appalachian region to the blue-joint, buffalo grass and grama grass of Montana is a good long jump, if you are not familiar with the territory between. Those steers were good Hereford steers raised on that station in Montana. We shipped half of them to the feed lot in Nebraska to be fed on corn for 90 days, and the other half were sent to Beltsville, near Washington, for slaughter, and then after the grain-fed steers were slaughtered we sent them in here and ran them all through our laboratories and through the cooking test. We found practically no difference in any factor of quality except in the appearance of the fat.

There was just a little more fat and it was just a little whiter where the steers were fed 90 days, but from the standpoint of the grade of the meat or of the quality of that meat, as determined by the palatability tests, there was not enough difference to amount to a quarter of a grade.

Mr. CANNON. I am certainly glad to hear you make that statement. We have had to deal with the psychological feature of the industry out in our country. Although you reassure the feeder and demonstrate to him that he can produce these cattle profitably without concentrates, the average feeder is influenced by other considerations. He prides himself on the smooth-looking bunch of steers he put on the market. His neighbors gather in to look over his herd before he ships it and he likes to show them a prize herd of cattle. He goes down on the market and meets the reporters and like to be mentioned in the trade journals as having topped the market. If we can educate him to the point where he is willing to take the grass-fed bunch down there he will find that while de does not make so much of an impression and while he does not, of course, get such a big price for his shipment, when he goes to settle with the bank, and pays his feed bill, he is away ahead of the fellow who has produced the corn-fed steers that top the market but has to pay for the corn. I hope the Department will emphasize these findings, because we are wasting a world of corn. Mr. SINCLAIR. The market is reflecting an advantage in price on the corn-fed steers. They sell more readily when they go on the market. Our grass-fed cattle coming in from North Dakota or Montana do not get as good a price as the corn-fed cattle from Iowa and Missouri.

Mr. CANNON. But when you settle the feed note at the bank, and you do not have to pay this big corn bill, you are dollars ahead.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Oh, I presume there is something to that. But I think that information, which to me is astonishing and valuable, ought to be spread out so that the farmers and the consumers may know it.

Mr. SHEETS. We are working with the college at Fargo and with with the college at Columbia, and I think we are getting some valuable information on this question.

Mr. HART. Have you any bulletins on that?

Mr. SHEETS. Yes, sir; we have. This was just completed last fall. In cooperation with the University at Columbia we are getting results that go a step further in our new type of work, where we aim to smooth the animals up in breeding rather than in feeding. I do not know whether you are familiar with the breeding projects at Sni-a-Bar Farms and Druner Institute near Kansas City or not.

The practice at Sni-a-Bar has been developed there, instead of fattening 2- and 3-year-old steers, of taking those calves when they are, say, 5 or 6 weeks old and beginning to feed them grain while they are nursing the cow on pasture. The best of them will be finished at less than 12 months of age and weighing around 900 to 1,000 pounds. Now, if you want to make choice to prime beef, that is probably the best way for the man who has good pasture land and who has his own roughage and his own grain to do it, because you eliminate at least 1 year in the steer's life, and have just that much more chance of breaking even.

That information has been carried to practically all of the Corn Belt States, where the need for pasture is very definite and where pasture acreage is likely to be increased now, and where the roughage will be available for carrying the cow herd.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Is that what you call raising baby beef?

Mr. SHEETS. Well, baby beef usually applies to calves fattened after they are weaned. This work is fattening calves on grass while they are nursing the dam. We have a cooperative bulletin with the University of Missouri on that, which is available, and large numbers have been distributed.

Mr. SINCLAIR. And you say that in 1 year you can get 1,000 pounds? Mr. SHEETS. We have quite a number of them.

Mr. SINCLAIR. That is news to me.

Mr. SHEETS. That is good grass. Commencing when the calf is weaned, he will eat ground corncob meal or ground corn and a little cottonseed meal.

Mr. HART. Those are steers?

Mr. SHEETS. Both steers and heifers. We have brought out in this meat work that until the animal is of breeding age there is no justification for a discrimination against the heifer as compared with the steer.

Mr. HART. Have you got that in bulletin form?

Mr. SHEETS. Yes, sir. It used to be that the heifer was very greatly discriminated against, but it was largely because the heifers were 2 and 3 years old. Many of those heifers were carrying calves, of course, and that does lessen their value.

PASTURE INVESTIGATION

Mr. CANNON. What do you mean by "grass"?

Mr SHEETS. When we say "fattened on grass", we mean that they have had good pastures. Now, if we would take the time to go into the pasture investigations that are under way

Mr. CANNON (interposing). That does not come under your immediate jurisdiction?

In that

Mr. SHEETS. We are working with the Bureau of Plant Industry in practically all of the pasture work that is being conducted with livestock. There is an agronomic phase of pastures and there is a livestock phase, and we have worked out a 100 percent cooperation, where they do the economic work, in cooperation with, say, the University of Missouri, and we furnish the animals and measure the quality of the product, the methods of grazing, and so on. way one investment has answered three problems: The agronomic question for the plant man, the animal question, and the management question for the Missouri Experiment Station and the Bureau of Animal Industry. One investment, therefore, has answered three sets of questions, and that is one of the benefits of cooperation. Then, too, it makes all of us interested in it, and we all tell the same story and get the answer much more quickly than if we were working independently.

Mr. CANNON. You would not care to go into the pasture question here?

Mr. SHEETS. If you desire, and if it relates to the livestock end; because that is the phase of the work which we are handling.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Then just tell us what the best type of pasture for finishing these cattle is.

Mr. SHEETS. I will be glad to insert in the record the results that we have obtained on that pasture down there, showing the gains where we graze continuously and where we graze alternately; that is, we will graze this week and then take them off, or to another field, as we do at the Mandan, N.Dak., pasture, where the cattle are grazed in rotation, and at other stations where we have fertilized the pastures in order to bring in more quickly certain grasses and legumes. (The information referred to above is as follows:)

Pasture investigations, 1931-33-Sni-A-Bar Farms, United States Department of Agriculture, and University of Missouri cooperating

OBJECTIVE

To determine the effect of different systems of grazing and fertilizer treatments on the yield and nutritive quality of bluegrass pastures and on their relative productiveness as measured by cattle gains or days of maintenance. Location: Sni-A-Bar Farms, Grain Valley, Mo., 25 miles east of Kansas City on United States Highway No. 50.

SYSTEMS OF GRAZING UNDER COMPARISON

1. Rotation grazing (east pasture, 25 acres).-This pasture is separated into three divisions each of which is grazed for 2 weeks and allowed to rest for 4 weeks in regular rotation. Grazing begins in April and continues to November. 2. Continuous grazing (middle pasture, 25 acres).—This pasture is grazed continuously from April to November.

3. Deferred grazing (west pasture, 25 acres, plus 10 acres of Korean lespedeza).— Grazing is deferred for a period of 2 to 3 weeks at the beginning of the pasture season and during the mid-summer period the cattle are transferred to lespedeza where they remain until the bluegrass renews its growth following the late summer rains. The approximate length of this period is from 6 to 8 weeks.

RESULTS

The results of the first 3 years in which these grazing systems have been under investigation are given in the following tables:

TABLE 1.-Sni-A-Bar Farms cattle gains 3-year average-1931-33

Plot
Do.

Pasture

TABLE II.-Herbage yields

TABLE III-Fertilizer treatment-3-year average-1931-33

Average yields of air-dry herbage in pounds per acre

Fertilizers applied annually

For the pastures at Sni-a-Bar Farms we are using bluegrass and the clovers and lespedeza. From Missouri south lespedeza is one of our very valuable pasture plants, because it comes on after the other grasses have made their growth. For example, during the last half of September and the first half of October we will put on from 60 to 100 pounds of gain on good lespedeza pasture. That is almost like feeding corn at the end of the bluegrass pasture period. Now, up in the northern section, say in the lake region, it would be about the same mixture, except that we would probably bring in some of the fescues and some of the clovers, but not the lespedeza, because it

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