224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



hundred and fifty pounds would not be so appropriately 

 supplemented by cotton-seed meal as by corn-meal. 



The relative value of a food when fed alone, as determined 

 by German tests, is measured largely by the relative digestible 

 amount of the deficient material present. Thus, if enough 

 of a given food were consumed to furnish all the minerals, 

 fats, and carbohydrates needed for the most rapid growth, 

 and yet containing only one-half of the needed amount of 

 albuminoids, no continuous rapid growth would be possible : 

 economy would demand the addition to it of an albuminous 

 food. 



The reason why the coarser foods, so common with us, — 

 straw, corn-fodder, and swale-hay, — are so lightly esteemed, 

 is due to the deficiency of albuminoids ; that the Value 

 of these coarse foods can be greatly enhanced by the addition 

 of albuminous meals. 



Looking down the table of amounts of albuminoids re- 

 quired for growing animals, it is noticed that a calf, in 

 proportion to weight, requires twice the amount of albumi- 

 noids, daily, that is needed by a seven-hundred-pound animal. 

 Again, looking down the table of amounts of nutrients digest- 

 ed in a hundred pounds of the various foods given, it will be 

 seen that oat-straw, swale-hay, etc., are poorer in albuminoids 

 than good hay ; yet it is a popular belief that young animals 

 will thrive better with poor foods than older animals. This 

 belief is carried out in practice. The ratio of low-meadow 

 hay in the table is one pound of digestible albuminoids to 

 eleven pounds. The ox at rest only requires from one to 

 twelve pounds ; the eight-hundred-and-fifty-pound steer, from 

 one to eight ; while the calf needs from one to four and 

 seven-tenths. Even the hay richest in albuminoids falls short 

 of this material in sufiiciency for the calf. This policy of 

 feeding poor foods to young animals, without appropriate 

 grain, should be reversed in the interest of economy. Farmers 

 frequently assert that they know that their young animals do 

 better on the poorer foods, eating it better than their older 

 animals. This is perhaps true, and is due to the fact that 

 young animals have a vigorous appetite, consuming more, and 

 gaining more, in proportion to weight, than older ones. At 

 the growing period it is a great mistake to rely upon a vigor- 

 ous appetite to utilize inappropriate food : it is a sacrifice 



