222 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



and flesh has been made subservient to heat function. Because of 

 these different functions, the dairy animal tends to become sparo 

 and angular while the beef cow tends to become square and blocky. 

 Temperament governs form, and form governs functions. The 

 dairy cow does not need very much meat or fat on her back in 

 order to perform her function of making milk. If she carries 

 much flesh it is an indication that she will consume a large amount 

 of feed for the milk produced. In other words, the cow that car- 

 ries more flesh and fat than is needed to indicate a thrifty con- 

 dition is using more feed than she ought to for maintaining her 

 body. The cow is not always to blame for this condition — the 

 feeder is sometimes over-anxious to see his cattle look fat and 

 sleek, and feeds them more grain than they are capable of manu- 

 facturing into milk. This practice is more or less injurious to the 

 cattle, and it is a costly luxury. It is the observing feeder that 

 watches these conditions and does not feed any animal more than 

 she will consume economically. 



I 



A MAINTENANCE RATION. 



Every living creature requires food to sustain life, whether 

 it works or not. The loafing man eats, the resting horse consumes 

 a certain amount of feed and it is none the less true of the cow. 

 The steam boiler requires a certain amount of fuel to maintain the 

 steam to a given pressure when it is not working. The cold air 

 which surrounds it is constantly cooling the water, and in order 

 to keep up steam some feed must be added. In animal life the 

 surrounding atmosphere is constantly cooling the animal's body, 

 and to maintain the body at a normal temperature, fuel must be 

 constantly added. Moreover, it takes a certain amount of feed to 

 supply energy to do the work the animal has to perform in extract- 

 ing the nutriments from the feeds and to carry them to the differ- 

 ent parts of the body. The fuel which the boiler requires to keep 

 up a given pressure of steam corresponds very closely to the feed 

 that the animal demands to sustain life, and bodily health, without 

 gaining or losing in weight. The feed thus used is called the 

 maintenance ration. 



THE WORKING RATION. 



When an animal is fed enough to support her body properly and 

 the steam boiler enough fuel to raise and sustain a given pressure 

 of steam, if either is required to do more to exert additional energy. 



