42 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



up in the decaying roots of the clover plants near the surface, 

 was a contribution, a free gift of the clover plant to the soil. 

 It is right, therefore, that the farmers of Maine and all other 

 farmers should regard the clover plant and its cousins as the 

 backbone of their agriculture. They are the one class of crops 

 that give abundant forage and at the same time leave the soil 

 richer for having borne them. 



Turning now to the grain feeds mentioned by Dr. ]\Iiller, this 

 comment is called for. His theory of the balanced ration is 

 eminently correct, with one or two qualifications. In the first 

 place the digestive coefficients may not tell all the truth concern- 

 ing the feeding stufif. Suppose we had corn meal and found it 

 to be 80% digestible as to its protein content. Suppose we 

 should add to that corn meal, oat hulls, the digestibility as far 

 as the table would show, would not be greatly depressed but 

 the nutritive effect of the food would be greatly reduced. 

 Kemember that, as far as oat hulls are concerned, it takes more 

 energy to digest them than they themselves contain. The same 

 thing is true of coarse corn stalks. The chemist finds a great 

 deal of food value in coarse corn stalks but let us remember that 

 while the cow finds that same amount of plant food in these 

 stalks, she also finds that it costs more energy to digest them 

 than the ingredients in the corn stalks are really worth. Be 

 careful, therefore, in buying your grain feeds from the west that 

 you do not buy these oat hulls or these mixed feeds containing 

 oat hulls. Buy cottonseed meal, linseed meal, wheat bran, but 

 fight very shy of the by-products of the oat meal factories or of 

 those other mixed feeds diluted with oat hulls. 



When you buy these commercial feeds always use the table 

 which Dr. ^filler has given you but buy such feeds as will fur- 

 nish you the protein most cheaply. 



I cannot go on with my regular topic until I have said some- 

 thing to you about the selection of cows. Since I have been in 

 Maine I have listened with a great deal of instruction and pleas- 

 ure to the talks of certain gentlemen who believe that cows can 

 be separated into the profitable and the unprofitable animals by 

 the eye applied to the outward form. 



In other words, these gentlemen believe that the form of the 

 cow indicates with approximate accuracy the value of the cow 



