Mu. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 205 



DR. ARMSBY: If you had asked me that question a year or two 

 ago, T should have said you should leave out corn. But there have 

 been some results published within a year or two, showing that an 

 animal can build up proteids on corn; there has been quite a revela- 

 tion on that point within a year or two. 



QUESTION: ''Will the Doctor briefly figure out a balanced ration 

 on the black-board?" 



DR. ARMSBY: I couldn't answer that off-hand. That simply 

 means to sit down with a pencil and paper and figure it out. 



QUESTION: "What form of protein is best for farmers to use or 

 what should a farmer buy when he is resorting to corn, oats and 

 wheat?" 



DR. ARMSBY: The best form for him to buy is the one that is the 

 cheapest^ the one where he can get his protein — the amount that he 

 wants, for the least money. The difficulty in the application of that 

 lies in the fact that in any of these feeds you get something besides 

 protein. You can't go out into the market and get something that 

 is merely protein and nothing else, so that it is not quite a simple 

 problem in short division; but after making such allowance as you 

 can for what you get with it, get the feed rich in protein at the low- 

 est posible cost per pound. 



QUESTION: "Can we feed two pounds of protein per cow per day 

 with safety and profit?" 



DR. ARMSBY: Unquestionably, if you want to. 



PROF. COOKE : I would like to state one little experiment I tried 

 some years ago to see whether any bad results would come from ex- 

 cessive feeding in protein instead of feeding the ordinary nutritive 

 ration. I went way down to the narrowest ration, feeding the cow 

 with alfalfa, hay, bran and linseed meal; those are the feeds most 

 rich in nitrogen, making a nutritive ration of somewhere around one 

 to three and feeding it alternately with the wider rations and feed- 

 ing for several months. Some of the cows had that ration for over 

 six months, and there was no trouble at all. The milk-flow kept up 

 in excellent quantity and the cows kept up in weight; everything 

 seemed to be all right as the result of that excessive nitrogenous 

 feeding, so that I am inclined to state it something like this: That if 

 the feeds are digestible and healthful, it does not make any difference 

 how much protein you put into the animal. 



DR. ARMSBY: I would like to call your attention to the fact that 

 the first of these three experiments are right along this same line. 



