EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH BEET PULP AS A STOCK FOOD. 



C. D. SMITH, DIRECTOR. 



Bulletin Xo. 193. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The figures published in this bulletin as expressing the value of beet pulp must be 

 understood as based upon single continuous experiments only, and should not be relied 

 upon implicitly by the practical feeder as showing what he may expect from pulp 

 in his operations, until they are confirmed or modified by future experiments. 



The establishment of beet sugar factories in Michigan has furnished farmers a new 

 stock food in the shape of beet pulp. This pulp is clean in appearance, almost odorless, 

 very wet and heavy, but readily eaten by all kinds of live stock. As the pulp leaves the 

 factory, it passes through a press which removes some of the water, but leaves from 

 89 to 93 pounds of water to each hundred pounds of pulp. In Germany presses have 

 been introduced which reduce the per cent of water to SO. Where each hundred pounds 

 of pulp is made up of 90 pounds of water and 10 pounds of dry matter it is evident 

 that a ton of it will have but 200 pounds of dry matter. If by the use of improved 

 presses a pulp can be produced by the factories one hundred pounds of which shall 

 contain but 80 pounds of water, with 20 pounds of dry matter, it is evident that a 

 ton of it will contain 400 pounds of dry matter. In other words, regarding the water 

 as of no value, a ton of the pressed pulp is worth, as far as content of dry matter is 

 concerned, twice as much as a ton of the pulp as found in the piles of the material at 

 the factories in Michigan. Experiments in this country and abroad have shown con- 

 clusively that while the addition of a succulent feed to a ration otherwise made up of 

 dry feeds, produces results indicating a value to the succulent food out of all proportion 

 to its content of dry matter, forcing an animal to consume an undue amount of water 

 results in a positive loss.""' It is, therefore, to be hoped that ore long the factories, 

 upon finding a demand for the pulp as a stock food, will so prepare it as to leave in 

 it no greater per cent of water than 80. 



Many of the Michigan factories handle as high as 600 tuns of beets per day, turning 

 out fully 300 tons of pulp. The average campaign is not less than 90 days. It is safe 

 to estimate the annual output of beet pulp in this State with the present 13 factories, 

 as fully 300,000 tons. The economical utilization of this vast amount of material is 

 therefore a question of considerable moment. At nearly all the factories the great 

 bulk of the pulp is left to decay where it is dumped by the conveyor. Such a state of 

 things imperils the health of nearby residents and makes the factory a nuisance which 

 the owners must take means to abate. The farmers in the vicinity of the factory are 

 interested in the question whether the pulp is a valuable stock feed, whether it will 

 pay them to haul it to their barns, and. finally, how it should be fed to derive from it 

 the greatest possible good. 



It takes a long series of experiments to determine with any degree of certainty the 

 value of any new feeding stuff. The results of a single experiment are apt to be mis- 

 leading. The values set upon the new material may be much too high, or subsequent 



♦Armsby's Manual of Cattle Feeding, page 135; Maercker and Morgan, Wesen und Ver- 

 wertung der Getrock neten Diffusionsruckstande der Zu<.*erfahriken. page C. 



