218 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



The rations are in each case, except the first which is corn 

 meal alone, "balanced" in the sense that the proteids and carbohy- 

 drates are furnished in the proportion in which they are required 

 by the animals. In each of the mixed rations the nutritive ratio 

 of the digestible nutrients was 1 :6.5 — that is, each contains 6.5 

 times as much starch equivalent as protein. 



Five young hogs were fed in each lot, and at the beginning of 

 the experiments they weighed between 114 and 120 pounds each. 

 They were fed for sixty days and sold at weights of from 170 to 

 220 pounds. 



The feed was all ground and fed mixed up with water into a 

 thick slop, and each ration was fed twice daily to the limit of the 

 appetite of the lot receiving it. 



The first column of figures in the table shows us that lots 3, 

 4 and 5, in which the corn was supplemented by linseed oilmeal, soy 

 beans and tankage, required just about the same amount of feed to 

 make 100 pounds of pork. These three rations were considerably 

 more efficient than those containing wheat middlings and germ oil- 

 meal as fed to lots 2 and 6. All of these mixed rations were de- 

 cidedly more efficient than corn alone as fed to lot 1. 



The second column of figures shows that the average daily 

 gain per head corresponded very closely with the efficiency of the 

 feeds as shown by the grain requirement per hundred pounds of 

 increase in weight. The linseed oilmeal, soy beans and tankage 

 rations each produced average daily gains of about 1.7 pounds per 

 head, while the three other rations were much inferior to these. 

 The more efficient rations were also the most palatable ones as is 

 shown in the third column of figures. Since the hogs regulated the 

 amount consumed to suit themselves, these figures show which feeds 

 were relished best. 



• The feeds are considered to have cost at the farm, as indicated 

 by the prices given below the table, allowance being made for 

 freight in the case of those food stuffs requiring shipment from a 

 distance. The soy bsans were assumed to have a cost the same as 

 the linseed oilmeal just for comparison, it being considered that if 

 the beans produced pork as cheaply as the oilmeal, when figured 

 at the same price, attention might be called to the profitability of 

 producing this feed upon the farm. 



The soy bean and tankage rations produced pork at 3 cents per 

 pound, while the linseed oilmeal ration produced pork at $3.18 per 

 hundredweight. 



The ration of corn alone was not as profitable as the three 



