ANIMAL GROWTH AND NUTRITION. 239 



RATIONS FOR COWS. 



The length to which this subject has been extended 

 forbids the entering into the review of the interesting facts 

 and theories that have come to us from across the waters, 

 some of which an accumulation of facts in my experience at 

 our College Farm would not seem to fully sustain. I wish 

 merely to call attention to a phase of the question that every 

 good dairyman understands, — that while a milch cow must 

 have an abundance of albuminoids and carbohydrates daily, 

 yet we cannot, as with the steer, select these nutrients from 

 any source indiscriminately. When butter is sold, the factor 

 of quality comes in ; and the difference in price of good and 

 poor butter is so great, that the food that within certain 

 limits produces the best butter is the most economical. Thus 

 we have, in feeding the cow, the twofold purpose, — to accom- 

 plish the forming of a ration that will give a sufficiency of 

 each nutrient of foods, and that will furnish butter of good 

 quality from the cheapest foods that will maintain that 

 quality. In relation to the latter points only, will I now 

 say a word. Corn-meal I find to be a most excellent food 

 for both quality — as regards texture, color, and aroma — and 

 quantity, when fed in right combinations; but its lack of 

 albuminoids in sufficiency makes it necessary to use an 

 albuminous food with it. Bran added affects injuriously the 

 quality and quantity. Oat-meal and pease will maintain the 

 quantity better, but the quality still suffers. Palmer-nut 

 meal is a great butter-producer, but the quality is not right : 

 neither have I been fully satisfied with the brief trials of 

 oil-cake meals. For both quantity and quality, the equal 

 mixtures of corn and cotton-seed meals have proved most 

 satisfactory. The same problem that I found with my steers 

 I find with the cows, — that a cheaper and yet satisfactory 

 ration can be made with other combinations than those in 

 which hay is prominent. I have found corn-stover and 

 fodder-corn excellent butter-producers. The value of our 

 corn-plant to the dairyman is not easily overestimated. With 

 stover, clover, and straw, corn and cotton-seed meals, I find 

 a fodder cheaper than hay and grain effective, and producing 

 a good quality of butter. A change from the first ration, 

 without the clover, into early-cut hay alone, was followed by 



