BONE IN LIVE STOCK

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3248, 19 January 1926, Page 5

BONE IN LIVE STOCK

One of the most widespread examples of getting- the right answer with wrong figures Is the persistent demand of purchasers for “good bone” in live stock. Knowledge of the fact that animals can be bred too finely may prompt the insistent call for big bone, yet curiously enough it is short legs that most purchasers really desire. Consider the matter this way: A walking stick appears long and slender-—"light-boned”—yet a pencil of the same diameter would be noticeable for its size—“heavy-boned." An investigation of animals said to be heavy-boned in comparison with some others of similar breeding revealed the fact that the diameter of the bone In th a heavy-boned animals was the same as the diameter of the bon e in the so-called light-boned animals, but the light-boned beasts had legs three Inches longer than their heavy-boned brethren. In addition, the words “heavy” and “light” are misnomers. So-called heavy-boned beasts in which the boric actually was of unusual diameter proved upon slaughter to Have a thinwalled bone which really weighed no mor e than that of a splindle-shanketi critter which boasted thick walls to its pipe-stem legs. Tae conclusion is that it is Impossible to nudge anything beyond tha comparative outside diameter of a beast’s bone befor e slaughter. As a result, purchasers have consisently—• and rightly—given preference to animals with “heavy” bone, or, in other words, short legs.