Root-Crops for Stock-Feeding. 



89 



up in chewing and digesting food is manifested in heat and helps to keep 

 the animal warm, and is therefore not entirely lost when the ration is 

 merely for maintenance. But since in any liberal feeding for the pro- 

 duction of work, the production of meat, or of milk, the amount of heat 

 thus produced is sufficient to keep the animal warm, the figures given 

 above may be taken as representing their true food value. 



Value of mangels for tnilk. 



• Rather extensive Danish experiments indicate that a pound of dry 

 matter in roots is about equal to one pound of the cereal grains, or to 

 three-fourths of a pound of cottonseed meal, when fed to milch cows.^ 

 In these trials no silage was fed, the basal ration in each case consisting 

 of six and one-half pounds of hay and 10 pounds of straw per cow. The 

 experiment was so conducted as to eliminate apparently the factor of 

 succulence as shown by the following table : 



Average of six experiments including about 150 cows during several 

 months. Basal ration six and one-half pounds hay, 10 pounds straw. 



It will be noted that all the cows were fed roots, but two lots 

 were fed roots containing seven and one-half poimds of dry matter, equal 

 to about 65 pounds of fresh roots, instead of four and one-half pounds 

 of dry matter, equal to about 40 pounds of fresh roots. The additional 

 three pounds of dry matter in the first-mentioned cases gave as good 

 results as an equal quantity of cereal grains, the cereals consisting either 

 of Indian corn or of a mixture of barley, oats, and rye. Roots, like the 

 cereals, are highly digestible, perhaps even more digestible than the cereal 

 grains, and herein probably lies their high value. From the standpoint 

 of the results which they produce, the roots may be looked on as watered 

 concentrates. They have apparently a high net available energy. 



' Fifty-three Ber. Kg]. Vet. Landbohojskoles Lab. Landokon. 

 (Copenhagen), 1902, pp. 30. (E. S. R. XIV, 801). 



Fors5g 



