l^ BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



when he " launches out " to tell how much one kind of bay, 

 more than another, can supply to keep animals warm or to 

 lay on fat, or to supply flesh, until chemical science goes far 

 above its present perching ground, its conclusions are de- 

 lusive. 



Inutritive Equivalents. 



For the nutritive equivalents, or feeding values of grains 



and roots, as compared with hay, we are indebted to the 



researches of chemistry. As the tables of equivalent values 



coincide with the results of observation, they are accepted as 



not wide of the truth. Yet so much of the value of any food 



depends on the conditions and the circumstances under which 



it is fed, that it is impossible to make comparisons which 



shall at all times hold good. Indeed, while tables of kinds 



and quantities are valuable, the conditions of soil, climate, 



situation and requirements, are so multifarious, that no 



dogmatic rules can meet evep a tithe of them ; yet the mean 



of experiment and theory seems to show the comparative 



diflference between good hay and otlier kinds of cattle food to 



be as follows, to which is added the relative value of manures 



obtained from the consumption of a ton of each of the difl:erent 



kinds of food : 



100 lbs. of good hay are equalin feeding value to 275 lbs. of green fodder corn. 



The manure from 1 ton of good hay, is worth $5.85; from 1 ton of 

 clover. §8.75; from 1 ton of oat straw. $2.62; meadow hay. .$2.50; from a 

 ton of turnips, .$1.00; from a ton of cotton-seed meal, $25.22. 



From which it appears that the feeding value of three and 

 one-third bushels of potatoes are equal to ten bushels of 



