510 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



A Member: With one limidred pounds of union grains, liow much 

 cottonseed meal would it take to make up the required number of 

 therms — in union grain there is about 27 per cent, of protein. 



PROF. VAN NORMAN: I think it would be one hundred to three 

 or four hundred. The following is a mixture which would go well 

 with timothy hay and corn stover. 



400 pounds of corn meal, 

 100 pounds of cottonseed meal. 

 300 pounds of distillers' grain. 

 100 pounds of gluten feed. 



Now that amount of grain would contain 7.44 therms of energy. 

 If you want to find out whether it is a cheap ration or not, figure 

 out what it would cost you at your price, and divide by 7.44 to get 

 the cost of the energy, because that amount of grain contains 7.44 

 therms of net energy. At the present market price of grain, you 

 should be able to furnish the necessary amount of protein at less 

 than two dollars, our's costs one dollar and seventy-nine cents, buy- 

 ing in carload lots, as we have been able to do. Now that is pro- 

 tein, 1 to 5 per cent, net energy. 



Now I will give you over two other mixtures, which you may 

 like to figure out. Here is a mixture which I believe can be fed 

 profitably at the present prices, but there are many of our farmers 

 who have to figure on their own home grown products; they want 

 to figure linseed meal, because it is low in price, and corn meal and 

 oats, and bran, because they have them. 



300 pounds corn meal. 

 300 pounds linseed meal. 

 200 pounds oats. 

 400 pounds bran. 



This contains 8.14 therms of energy; divide the cost by 8.14, and 

 it gives you the cost of the feed to you — ^not the cost of the energy — 

 and I think you will find it runs somewhere near 2.15 per hundred 

 as compared with 1.85 for the other. 



In making up your grain mixture, spread on the barn floor, first 

 the bulky feeds; put on top of these the next lightest and so on, with 

 the heaviest on the top, then spread it as a good cement mixer 

 spreads his cement; then take up a shovelfull and lift it clear off 

 the floor and throw it over to the right or left, and then throw on 

 the next shovelful, spreading it as you go, and mixing it, and then 

 throwing it back again into tlie middle of the floor in the same way; 

 at the end of the third handling it should be properly mixed. 



Now it is u i-ually no trouble to weigh the feed ; if not every day, 

 I believe it is wise to weigh it once a week at least. If she gives 

 eighteen pounds of milk, she should have three pounds to eat. Mark 

 the amount on the stall, if you don't care to weigh it up each time 

 get a measure that will hold the proper amount. The greatest need 

 of our farming is business methods. 



The last five years have been years of science and bacteria, the 

 next ten years are to be years of business and profit. We must get 

 ^own to figures. If you only sell two hundred dollars worth of 



