No. 5. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



389 



FEED SELECTION 



PROF. F. S. PUTNEY, State College, Pa. 



Gentlemen, and Members of the Breeders' Association: The topic 

 on which we are to speak this afternoon is Feed Selection. It is a 

 a hard thing to teach an old dog new tricks. I have been talking 

 on feed selection for the past year and a half, and it has occurred 

 to me that 1 might talk of something you are not interested in. The 

 time this afternoon, is to be equally divided between the next speaker, 

 Prof. Thorne and myself. I will talk to you for a little while, and 

 leave a part of the time open for questions, so that you may also get 

 what you are interested in. 



We are a poor excuse for farmers unless we make some provision 

 for our families. Every farmer has a right to store up something 

 for his old age, and to provide for his family as he goes along. Sc 

 the farmer has a right to make some monev, and one of the wavs hi 

 can make it is in the matter of feed selection. 



I have here a chart prepared by Prof. Noll, and it has occurred 

 to me that I might use it, which you will notice, shows the results 

 of a thirty years' rotation of corn, oats, wheat and hay. 



AVERAGE ANNUAL VALUE PER ACRE OF CORN, WHEAT AND HAY, 

 GROWN IN A ROTATION FOR THIRTY YEARS. 



You will notice that corn produces the largest amount of diges- 

 tible protein, and gives us the largest value per acre, as well as the 

 largest amount of energy. It is good practice to look for the largest 

 amount of nutrients per acre in the selection of our feeds that we 

 raise on the farm. 



Now, one of the points to bear in mind is that there is no energy 

 in the cow herself. She is simply a machine that makes energy from 

 one feed or another. Proper feeding comes from the proper selec- 

 tion of your crops. This means that the farmer should grow the 

 crop that will give him the most energy, and the best value. 



The following table from Bulletin 114, of the Pennsylvania Ex- 

 periment Station, shows us what becomes of the feed eaten, and the 



