202 CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT, 



phosphates, potash, and ammonia, and the forms of those sub- 

 stances best suited for their land and their crops ; but there 

 are not so many who can tell what are the proportions of 

 albumen, oil, and carbohydrates contained in their fodder, or 

 what are the proportions required so as to produce the best 

 results at the cheapest rate. That is a knowledge that can 

 be only slowly acquired, but the first step to its acquirement is 

 to know what are the proportions of these ingredients contained 

 in the feeding stuffs they buy. The inducement to acquire 

 such knowledge is much greater in the case of feeding stuffs 

 than in that of manures, for the effects are far more under control. 

 It is one of the disadvantages of manuring that what may suit 

 one season does not suit another, and the best calculations are 

 liable to be upset by various climatic conditions. But in the 

 case of feeding stuffs a farmer can weigh to a pound the quantity 

 of fodder consumed by his cattle and the amount of live weight 

 produced from it, and if he only knows accurately the consti- 

 tuents of the fodder he is weighing he will be able to regulate 

 the dietaries of his stock in a perfectly intelligent and definite 

 manner. If the specific effects produced by the constituents of 

 fodders were better known, there would be more freedom of 

 action on the part of feeders, and a greater variety of feeding 

 stuffs would be brought into use than is at present the case. 

 No better illustration of that could be found than what is 

 afforded by the nature of the feeding stuffs recorded by the 

 associations this year. They were all linseed cakes. That 

 substance has got a name and reputation which makes it the 

 favourite, apart from all other considerations ; but there are 

 many feeding cakes and meals in the market which might be 

 profitably used as concentrated fodders were farmers only familiar 

 with them. They do not know how to value them according 

 to the proportions of the nutritive constituents they contain, 

 and they therefore prefer to adhere to the time-honoured use of 

 linseed cake. It may be that there is no better feeding stuff 

 than linseed cake, but that is a matter which cannot be proved 

 until other substances are used alongside of it, and compared 

 with it in an intelligent manner. 



The Valuation of Feeding Stuffs. 



In order to supply much-needed information on this subject, 

 a short description of the various kinds of feeding stuffs has this 

 year been included in the memoranda of the Chemical Depart- 

 ment, and will be found on p. 38 of Appendix B. In addition 

 to that, the following list of the more important feeding stuffs 

 in common use, along with their composition, and their average 

 price during the last three months, has this year been inserted 

 in the Society's valuation scheme (see Appendix B, p. 44). One 



