The Rugby gazette and east Tennessee news. (Rugby, Morgan Co., Tenn.) 1884-188?, 1885-06-20
BEEF FOR FOOD.
The Feeding That Is Necessary i'm Order
To Make the Best Beef.

The Feeding That Is Necessary i'm Order
To Make the Best Beef
1t is not the heaviest nor the latest
animal that should bring the highest
price for the butchers block, but that an
imal giving the largest per cent. of lean
meat to live weight Such an animal
will always contain fat enough with the
meat fiber to make it palatable, juicy
and nourishing. The fat parts of beef
cattle or mutton sheep are little used
as human food. Hence the crucial test
must ever be the greatest proportion
of lean meat muscle) to the carcass
1t is well known that steers quickly
fed to fairness on sweet, flush pasturage
give the most succulent and fnely-fav-
ored food. WhyP The relative proper
ton of fat and lean is normal Fat
cows sell for less money per pound
than steers. Why again? The proper
ton of fat to lean is greater, as the
principal cause, and, as q secondary
reason, although better favored than
that of the bull, the meat of the COW is
not so delicate as that of the steer.
Fashion, however, years ago decided
that carcass must be considered in
ferior if it did moi show immense devel-
opment of fat, even to great patchy
masses on the outside. 1t was estab-
lished in the good old days" of tallow
candles, when fat was one Of the most
important parts of the animal. So long
rs fashion demands this feeders must
cater to it. Indian corn will easily
make fat. Some food, richer in pbos.
plate and nitrogen, however, is re-
quired with corn, to keep the proportion
of fat and lean equal. If the true rela-
ton as between fat and lean were I'M
derstood by the buyer this could be pro-
duced probably cheaper to the consumer
than the monsters of fat so much adj
mired at our fat-stock shows. Yet so
long as the feeder and buyer alike take
pride In these fat-Overloaded animals
there will be no change, The fact,
however, remains constant: the last
two hundred pounds of fat added to a
steer, ripe in flesh, add only to tho cost
of the succulent lean meat produced.
One of the results of this fashion has
beer the forcing of breeding cattle until
they now, through heredity, carly de-
velop fat abnormally. The yearling a
mountain of blubbery fat is gazed on
with wonder. Grade Devons and we'll
bred native steers, however, continue
to dill the eye of the butcher and the
true gastromonist. 1t is so in England.
The black cattle, the Devon, and the
graded Hereford bring the best prices
at Smithtield market The reaction has
already set in in the United States to
the effect that a yearling or two-year-
old, however fat, does not constitute q
beef animal, and in the case of that
wonderful animal of bovine develop
ment, the Short Horn, serviceable ami
mails, even what would be called by
some breeders ''plainly bred" -what the
seller hoping to get something over
hundred dollars for would call '.useful'
these are coming to have more and
more advocates year by year. They are
not wonders of precocious fairness, but
they are nevertheless just the animals,
whatever the breed, that, bought at one
hundred to one hundred and fifty dol
lars for bull will pay one hundred
per cent. on the investment TO breed
| grades on the common stock of the
breeding farmer If they lack some.
! what of early maturity they give stout
hearty feeding calves that will make
thick-fleshcd steers and cows of more
than average goodness at the pai,.
There would seem 10 be no better time
for the intending purchaser than now
to enable the bull TO become fully
"wonted" 70 the herd before the breed.
ing season commences = C,ticttyo Trib-
! une