PRICKLY PEAR AS STOCK FEED. — SMITH. 



17 



preliminary period, when all received a ration of meal and as 

 much prickly pear as was eaten- for long enough to allow the 

 yields to recede to a level commensurate with the highest prickly 

 pear ration that could be fed to each. 



Three comparisons were made — viz., prickly pear alone vs. 

 Soudan grass hay ; prickly pear vs. prickly pear and hay ; and 

 prickly pear and hay vs. hay. In addition, two cows were fed 

 prickly pear continuously. The comparisons were made during 

 forty-day periods, the first ration being fed in two separate 

 half periods of twenty days, the second in an interposed forty 

 days. The cows were grouped and fed as shown in Table 9 : — 



Table 9. — Groups, Rations, and Periods.* 



* Ten days' transition periods for changing feeds were allowed. 

 t Five months. 



The prickly pear was of about 85 per cent, water content, 

 and was prepared by passing through a Texan prickly pear 

 sheer. Generally as much was fed as was eaten. In the second 

 period as much hay was given as produced about the same 

 body weight gains as were previously obtained with prickly pear. 

 Allowance of meal was made to provide protein in accordance 

 with the Haecker standard for milch cows' (4). The meal 

 allowance was adjusted to the butter -fat yield every tenth 

 day. The prickly pear and other feeds were regularly analysed. 

 The digest! biUty coefficients of the feeds were obtained in the 

 manner employed in the work with steers. The milk was weighed 

 at each milking and analysed each alternate day during the 

 periods. The fat content and specific gravity were determined 

 and the soHds-not-fat calculated by Richmond's formula. 

 The initial and final body weights were each based on ten 

 consecutive daily weighings, corrected as inf the work with 

 steers. 



