Vermont Dairymen's Association. 125 



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

 maximum production, and are couched in mathematical terms ; 

 and 



2. The practicable, which are essentially home made, based 

 upon and guided by the physiological standards, and which are 

 moreover less variable according to circumstances. Such a con- 

 ception of the feeding standard proposition enhances their use- 

 fulness to the careful feeder. 



Protein must be fed our cows, however, whether Haecker's 

 ideas prove sound or fallacious. Vermont farmers may be able 

 to grow the equivalent of 1.5 pounds protein daily on the farm 

 if weather conditions favor and advantage be taken of one of 

 the latest triumphs of science, perfected in the laboratories of 

 the National Department of Agriculture. 



Moore's soil and seed inoculation, concerning which so much 

 has been said of late in the press, bids fair to become a practical 

 success. His cultures of the nodule-producing organisms have 

 been grown under conditions where they have had, as it were, 

 to struggle for existence. The survivors are emphatically the 

 fittest, and are many times more active in nitrogen gathering 

 than were their bacterial forbears. Clover and alfalfa crops 

 grown from inoculated seed are the better because of the treat- 

 ment; the forage is richer and there is more of it; the ration 

 may be thus enriched in protein, and the dairyman tO' some 

 extent relieved from the necessity of grain purchase. The 

 cultures are readily used; the directions are simplicity itself; 

 the results are positive; and the cost is one cent for a postal 

 card, a hundredth of a cent for ink, and a minute's time. 

 What is the "best" grain feed for cows? 

 There is none expressed in terms of pounds or measures of 

 roughages and concentrates ; but there are many thoroughly good 

 ones. If the grain ration carry protein in sufficient quantity, is 

 made up of three or more ingredients, all palatable, none injuri- 

 ous to the milk and its products, and one of them at least me- 

 chanically a lightener of the ration, — as for example wheat bran 

 or distillers' grains, — it may be expected to be physiologically 

 as good as the best. If, then a trained judgment and a due re- 

 gard to economy enter into the formulation of the ration, one 

 cannot go far astray. Five years' work at Burlington with re- 

 stricted and with heavy grain rations of all sorts, as well as the 

 study of the results of similar work elsewhere, leads me to 

 believe that given : 



I. A class of cows making 250 or more pounds of butter, 



