No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 745 



you some falsehoods to-day: nothing that I know to be such, yet, 

 notwithstanding, untruths. My statements represent what I believe 

 is held to be true to-day, but which 20, 40 or a 100 years hence may 

 be otherwise regarded. This does not imply that present concep- 

 tions are useless, though they may be erroneous. They may prove 

 helpful, even if they are not immutable. 



To cover all that science has done even in this one line, were im- 

 possible. One must draw the line somewhere; hence I speak only of 

 "some things" which have been done "of late." My talk on this ac- 

 count is disjointed rather than connected, and suggestive instead of 

 didactic. I shall take it for granted, moreover, that you have a grasp 

 upon certain of the fundamentals, for a dairymen's meeting is on a 

 higher plane than a farmers' institute. It is the high school as it 

 were of the modern instruction of the adult farmer, and conse- 

 quently we may assume something for most of those who attend its 

 sessions. 



What are some of the points which have been developed touching the 

 feeding of dairy cows f 



1. The limitations of feeding standards are better understood and 

 the protein statement of the German standard-balanced ration is 

 under review. 



2. The home-growing of adequate supplies of protein is a more 

 practicable thing, thanks to soil if not seed inoculation with nodule- 

 producing organisms. 



3. The "best" grain feed is better known. 



Professor Haecker, of the Minnesota Station is emphatic in his be- 

 lief that we feed cows too much protein. He shows several animals 

 with good records which for years had eaten only 1.5 pounds of 

 protein dail}'. Five years' study at Vermont Station of the relation 

 ship of varying grain rations to profit and to bovine well-being as 

 well as a survey of work elsewhere leads me to believe that the Ger- 

 man balanced ration's call for 2.5 pounds of digestible protein is 

 usually an over-loud cry. But on the other hand I am not yet ready 

 to accept Haecker's results as applicable in the East. In fact among 

 the later conceptions of science is found the notion that feeding 

 standards resemble Indian rubber rather than cast-iron, that they 

 are helpful as guides rather than as rules, and that protein is not 

 in the slang phrase, the "whole thing." Feeding standards are dif- 

 ferentiated into: 



1. The physiological standards, which are based on animal needs 

 and maximum production, and are couched in mathematical terms; 

 and 



2. The practicable standards which are essentially home-made, 

 based upon and guided by the physiological standards, and which 

 are more or less variable according to circumstances. Such a con- 

 ception of the feeding standard proposition enhances their useful- 

 ness to the careful feeder. 



What is the "best" grain feed for cows? 



There is no best expressed in terms of pounds or measures of 

 roughages and concentrates; but there are many thoroughly good 

 ones. If the grain ration carries digestible protein in sufficient 

 quantity, and is made'up of three or more ingredients, all palatable, 

 none injurious to the milk and its products, and one of them at least 

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