204 THE BOOK OF CORN 



bility of the ration to the special use to which it is to 

 be put. A vast majority of the feeders of America find 

 it necessary and profitable to use the product of the 

 corn plant as the basis of all rations for all classes 

 of stock. 



It is clear that when feed is to be purchased, it 

 should as far as practicable be selected with reference 

 to supplementing, balancing or adding to the value of 

 the material already on hand, rather than to purchase 

 more of the same class. For example, it would not 

 be good business policy to purchase timothy, kafir 

 corn, sorghum, millet, or any of the straws, to feed with 

 corn and stover, since such a combination adds nothing 

 to the ration above the sum of digestible nutrients con- 

 tained in the two feeds. Whereas if clover, alfalfa, 

 cowpeas, bran, middlings, gluten meal, cottonseed meal 

 or linseed meal be selected to combine with the corn 

 products, the feeding value of the resulting ration 

 would be directly increased. As practical illustrations 

 of the value of combining such materials with corn 

 products the following results of careful experiments 

 are cited : 



Dairy Cows — Jordan* reports the results of an 

 experiment in which the yield cf milk from cows when 

 fed on six pounds of corn daily c.nd all the timothy hay 

 they would eat, was compared with the quantity of milk 

 obtained from the same cows when fed on a balanced 

 ration consisting of two pounds of corn meal, two 

 pounds of cottonseed meal and two pounds of gluten 

 meal, together with all the timothy hay they would eat. 

 Roth rations supplied practically the same quantity of 

 digestible nutrients, but the proportion of protein was 

 nearly twice as much in the mixed pfrain ration as in 

 the corn meal ration. The results showed that during 

 the time the cows were fed the balanced ration they 



*Maine state college annual report. 1893, Page 81. 



