684 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



MODERN CATTLE FOODS AND CATTLK FOOD 



CONTROLS. 



BT DR. WM. FREaR, State College, Pa. 



In all lilies of human activity, the tendency of scientific develop- 

 ment has been toward the preparation of a greater variety of pro- 

 ducts and toward the application to useful purposes of materials 

 that formerly were regarded as of no possible use. This tendency 

 has been manifested in the manufacture of cattle foods as well as 

 in every other productive industry. The preparation of breakfast 

 foods and the great variety of other special forms of human food, 

 the manufacture of glucose and of starch, of beer, whiskey and alco- 

 hol have all resulted in the formation of a series of by-products 

 which have sought the market as cattle foods. The conditions of 

 animal industry have, on the other hand, created a demand for spe- 

 cial foods supplying one or the other of the important groups of plant 

 nutrients in large degree. Particularly it is true that the farmer of 

 to-day denumds, to supplement the feeding stuff raised on the farm, 

 such cattle foods as will supply large quantities of protein. 



This IS due partly to the better recognition of the special needs 

 of animals producing large quantities of nitrogenous tissue or of 

 such a secretion as milk. It is also in part due to the attempt on 

 the part of the dairyman and feeder to supply a fresh product the 

 year round, and to the fact that the acreage required for the pastur- 

 age of cattle has, in the more thickly settled districts, become rel- 

 atively too valuable to make stock-raising and dairying profitable by 

 that method of feediog. One other fact in this connection is worthy 

 of mention, namel}', that the relative importance of corn and its 

 stalks among the crops grown on our farms, coui)led with the fact 

 that the proportion of protein that these contain is far below that 

 necessary for rations best adapted for the feeding of growing, muscle- 

 producing and milk-yielding animals, has necessarily resulted in 

 a deficiency of the protein supply in our home-produced cattled 

 foods. 



The eastern farmer no longer, therefore, relies chiefly upon pas- 

 turage for (he maintenance of his animals during their most produc- 

 tive months, and upon his stock of hay, corn stover, corn chop, varied 



