AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 73 



The German Feeding System. 



The German feeding standards, as they have come to be called, 

 are an attempt to state in extract terms the quantities of digestible 

 materials of different kinds that the daily rations of the various 

 classes of farm animals should contain in order to secure the best 

 results. 



The standards were calculated by Dr. Emil Walff and others from 

 the data furnished by German investigations and experiments, and 

 they represent a large amount of observation and experience. 

 They are in no sense guess-work ; neither should it be said of them 

 that they are wholly theoretical. 



It is claimed by some that they should be revised, and it seems 

 probable that not only the actual but the relative amounts for which 

 these standards call will sometimes be modified by fuller investiga- 

 tions and larger experience. 



So far as we have any hints of what these changes will be, they 

 indicate lower figures for the total digestible material, and a smaller 

 proportion of potein in some cases. Such would certainly be the 

 changes if these standards were made to imitate the practice in 

 vogue among a large percentage of American farmers, for as they 

 now stand they call for very liberal feeding, more liberal, perhaps, 

 than is in all cases profitable. Nevertheless, so long as feeding 

 insufficiently for generous production is a very prevalent fault, it is 

 better, perhaps, that the standards we set should err, if at all, on 

 the side of too generous rather than too small rations. 



The quantities stated in these German standards are the amounts 

 of digestible material of different kinds that should be fed daily for 

 each 1000 pounds of live weight. If an animal weighs more or less 

 than one thousand pounds, the ration is to be increased or diminished 

 in proportion. 



It is important to notice that not only the amounts, but the kind 

 of digestible material varies with the kind of animal. 



This is but a recognition of the obvious fact that the demands 

 upon the food for the various kinds of production are greatly 

 different. 



The amounts, and also the proportions, of the several food ele- 

 ments required to maintain a resting animal, or to sustain labor, or 

 to produce rapid growth, or to keep up a liberal flow of milk, are 

 quite unlike. 



