The Topeka state journal., 1899-04-27

tening of live stock has been reduced
to an exact science
There are three kinds of cattle, COM
mercially speaking. The wild or range
cattle. mixed COWS and steers 2 years
old. are bred in Texas and Indian Ter
ritory, mostly, and shipped from Elgin
and other points of less Importance to
the stock yards of Kansas City. There
they are divided into Gamers, StockerS
and feeders. Stockers are good breed
Gng COWS, which are sold and sent back
60 the farms of Kansas to multiply and
Teplenish the barn yards. Feeders are
steers that will be likely to take on flesh
If we'll fed, and are sent to the fatten-
ing farms, where for short year they
revel in luxury and then pay the pen
atty at the butchers block 1t has been
found that $50 bushels of corn, more
less, will add 500 pounds of beef to the
weight of the steer and increase his
value from SIS or $40 to $40 or $50. When
a steer is fattened he is usually sold by
the pound according to the rates pre-
vailing in the Kansas City or Chicago
markets, somewhere between 5 and 6
cents a pound. The difference between
the value of the raw material and that
of the finished product, less than the
cost of $50 bushels of corn, is the profit
of the farmer.
Gamers are low grade that are hard
to fatten and are not considered worthy
of the honor of assisting to perpetuate
their species. 1t is a. case of the sur
vival of the fittest, and they are sent
to the eXecutioner without further cere-
mony. The beef they have carried
tories to be corned. picked, salted.
smoked and canned in various forms
and by various processes.
The business of breeding and fatten-
Ing cattle is largely done on credit, like
the mercantile trade and manufactur-
1ng. OF the 1,300,0 900 stockers and feed
ers in the state of Kansas today, prob
ably so per cent are mortgaged, or have
bought known a <
"cattle paper" When a country mer-
chant goes to Chicago to buy goods he
pays so much cash, according to the
amount of his working capital, and for
the remainder gives his note for sixty
days, or three months, or six months,
as the case may be, with interest. When
a farmer goes to Kansas City to get a
bunch of stockers and feeders he pays
as much cash as he can offer, usually
not less than 40 per cent, and gives his
notes for six months or a year, which
are secured by mortgage upon the
animals. The seller, who is generally
a commission man, gets the notes dis
counted at the banks, upon his own in
dorsement, and of course, becomes re-
sponsible for their payment
This business is also done largely
through the local banks of Kansas
which advance money to their custom
erS to use in buying stock at Kansas
CITY and other markets. 1t is esti-
mated that at least one-haIf of the
loans of the Kansas banks are repre-
Sehted Dy caIJIe paper Dably $2O,-
OO0.O0O-and that a similar amount of
eastern money is loaned in this state
upon the same sort of security The
current rate of interest upon local
money is and 10 per cent, with per
cent commission fog making the loan,
and the time is six months, for the rea-
son that the risk is less. There has
been a good deal of eastern money
loaned on twelve months paper at 5
and 511 per cent lately, but the ruling
rate is 6 and per cent, with 215 per
cent commission.
1he reason eastern money commands