EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 333 



pulp as it conies from the factory is found to be a most valuable food 

 for dairy and fattening stock. 



At Grand Island, Neb., fine herds of fattening steers have been fed 

 nothing but beet pulp and prairie hay and have laid on flesh at a rapid 

 rate. The quality of meat was said to be superior. The pulp retains 

 enough sugar to make it a very palatable food for stock. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, however, the farmers of Nebraska have been rather slow to 

 take advantage of this addition to the ration of their cattle. 



R. M. Allen, the general manager of the Standard Cattle Company, 

 of Ames, Nebraska, has been experimenting with feeding pulp to cattle. 

 In the winter of 1892-3 he fed two hundred and seventy-five head of 

 cattle under many difficulties, and in several ways the results were unsat- 

 isfactory and incomplete. In a letter received at the Station early in 

 November, Mr. Allen writes: "A number of cattle were fed beet pulp, 

 corn silage and hay alone for four months, making the cheapest ration 

 we ever fed. Other cattle were fed on a hundred pounds of pulp and 

 six pounds of mixed cornmeal and ground oil cake; other cattle on fifty 

 pounds of pulp and ten of meal, all cattle getting hay." 



The only things that were decided by the experiment were: 



"First, That the cattle would eat as much as a hundred pounds of 

 pulp a day; 



"Second, That they eat pulp with evident satisfaction and great relish; 



"Third, That they consume very little or no water at all while eating 

 pulp. 



"Other points as to which I feel satisfied in my own mind, but which 

 perhaps I cannot clearly demonstrate, are, that the use of pulp will 

 effect a valuable saving of other food, both hay and grain, and that in 

 the feeding of cattle for beef, by the use of pulp we can probably effect 

 an economy of twenty to thirty per cent of the total cost of food. In 

 years of drouth, when food stuffs are very high, the saving will be a very 

 valuable one indeed. Pulp is very bulky and costly to transport, and 

 expensive to handle. These charges, however, cut no figure with farm- 

 ers delivering beets to a factory, who can as well as not take back a load 

 of pulp to their farm. Pulp can be kept very easily indeed, as it becomes 

 extremely compact and sours or ferments slightly. A large pile can even 

 be left out doors in very cold weather, and while a crust eight or ten 

 inches will freeze on the outside the inside will remain in good con- 

 dition. 



"Some of these cattle, after being fed four months, were sold in Chi- 

 cago. Spayed heifers dressed out 60 per cent, and steers G2.2 per cent, 

 favorably reported on by Swift & Co. 



"Prof. Nicholson of Lincoln, Neb., analyzed some pulp for me with the 

 following results: 



"Organic matter, 10.78 per cent. 



"Digestible protein, .37 per cent. 



"Digestible crude fibre, 1.18 per cent. 



"Digestible N. free extract, 3.49 per cent. 



"Digestible fat, .00 per cent. 



"Nutritive ratio, 1:7.1. 



