ECONOMICAL Fe:SDING OF ANIMALS. 35 



that she wanted about three times as much protein material but 

 not ten times that amount of the fat producing material, only 

 six times as much ; so that, as it is expressed, the cow wanted a 

 nutritive ratio of i : 6. 



Now the question that presents itself is : Where are we to 

 get feeds with these nutritive ratios, or how may we combine 

 feeds so as to produce them ? 



Digestible Nutrients. Pounds Per ton. 



Carbohy- Nutrative 



Protein. Urates. Fat. Ratio. 



Corn silage 18 226 14 1:11.4 



Timothy hay 56 !J68 ' 28 1:16.7 



Clover hay 3S 716 34 1:5.9 



Alfalfa hay 220 792 24 1:3.9 



Corn grain 1,58 1,334 86 1:9.7 



Oats grain 184 946 84 1:6.2 



Wheatbran 244 784 59 1:3.8 



<jiluten meal 516 866 220 1:2.7 



Cottonseed meal 744 338 244 1:1.2 



Linseed Oil meal O. P 586 fi.M 140 1:1.7 



Soy Beans 5!»2 446 288 1:1.9 



Referring to the chart, we see that corn silage (which means 

 the entire corn plant) has a nutritive value of i '.14. By this we 

 mean that there is 14 times as much material in the entire corn 

 plant which goes to produce heat, energy and fat as there is of 

 the material used to produce muscle and the allied tissues, or 

 milk in feeding the cow. Now recall that the cow wanted a 

 nutritive ratio of i : 6. Hence it is seen that in feeding the entire 

 corn plant we feed a great excess of the carbohydrates or fat 

 producing material. In order to enable the cow to utilize all of 

 the fat producing material in the corn plant we must feed some- 

 thing that contains a relatively large amount of the protein 

 material in order to get the right proportion of the t\^ nutritive 

 elements. Glancing at timothy hay, which seems to be the most 

 nearly universal feed in Maine, we notice that it has a still wider 

 nutritive ration, i :i6. Hence this calls for a larger supplement 

 of the rich protein feed. Glance at the nutrients in clover hay. 

 Here we see that the striking contrast between the two hays lies 

 in the relatively lajrge amount of protein material, giving a nutri- 

 tive ratio of approximately i : 6, just what it was found the cow 

 needed for milk production. You may ask the question : Then 

 why not feed clover hay alone? The answer is to be found in 

 noting that the combined nutrients in clover hav are less than 



