Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1879 — Quality or Quantity. [ARTICLE]

Quality or Quantity.

The tendency in our markots is toward more careful discrimination as to quality. Meat buyers are growing more particular—if not much more willing to pay higher prices for superior quality, they are unwilling to buy inferior qualities at any price. Butchers, and those who buy to sell to butchers, are also becoming more earefnl and discriminating in their purchases. Tlie progress iu this direction is slow, but it is going on and will continue.

The rich and the fastidious will continue to be particular as to the quality of the meat bought; as, indeed, all sensible persons ought to be. Butchers will grow more, rather than less observant of the proportions of meat to offal, of high and low-priced meat; and the difference in prioe between good and poor “ butchers' beasts" wifi increase rather than diminish. There has been less discrimination in regard to the hog than with either cattle or sheep. Swine breeders and feeders on a large scale have much to encourage them in the belief that the best hogs to rear are those which will make the most pounds from a bushel of corn. So large a proportion of the pork products are not consumed in a fresh state, and so much is exported, that it is clearly true that too little attention has been paid by many buyers to the quality of the meat. But even here the tendency will be toward making greater distinctions. The breeder’s and feeder’s aim is profit. There is no objection to the statement, “ I want the animal which will make the most money;’’ unless, indeed, this desire for profit leads to dishonesty or a short-sighted policy. If two steers look equally well in all respects, they will sell equally well; but if it be found that those of one breed habitually dress more to live weight, or give a larger percentage of meat in tne best -places, they will come to sell higher. If they can be reared at the same cost, intelligent feeders will give up any prejudices they have held, and adopt this breed. There are many stock feeders who are neither intelligent nor enterprising; but there are also many who are quick to see methods of improvement; if any breed has marked superiority over others, it will come to be popular. It does not at all follow, however, that either the breed or the modo of feeding which produces the very finest quality of meat will be generally adopted, foj? neither will probably give the largest profits * On the other hand, it certainly will not do for breeders and feeders to look to quantity alone, entirely disregarding the quality of the meat. Very great size is rarely ever found united with very good quality. No one would select any one of the half-dozen largest steers and cows at the late Fat-Stock Show and expect to secure equally good beef, or to have equally as profitable an animal for the butcher, as were many of those of medium weight. No one of the very heaviest animals represented profitable feeding. It is questionable whether any one of them is now worth the food it has consumed. In a less degree this is true of swine. Remarkably heavy hogs are rarely a source of profit, ft is a point in favor of a breed that its meat is a finer texture and better quality than that of another. —Live Stock Journal, Chicago.