COST PER FOOD UNIT 185 



is. 6^d. in ground-nut cake to 3^. ^\d. in English 

 oats, a range which gives plenty of scope for 

 economy. 



The price per food unit is a reliable basis for 

 comparing the price of various feeding stuffs on 

 the market, but it is by no means the whole story. 

 When a farmer goes to market to buy feeding 

 stuffs he usually has some definite purpose in mind. 

 He intends for instance to buy some kind of con- 

 centrated food to supplement the home-grown fod- 

 ders he has grown for his fattening bullocks or 

 milking cows. He knows by experience that a 

 concentrated food with astringent properties is re- 

 quired to make a successful diet along with the 

 large amount of succulent fodder provided by his 

 roots, and he consequently buys cotton cake, or a 

 mixture of cotton cake and linseed cake. He 

 knows that by adjusting the relative proportions 

 of linseed cake, which is laxative, with cotton cake, 

 which is astringent, he can keep the digestive 

 organs of his stock in proper condition all the 

 year round whether the rest of their ration is dry 

 food in the winter or luscious grass in the early 

 summer. 



Farmers have learned by experience the prac- 

 tical properties of the foods they have been accus- 

 tomed to use, but it was necessary to find out the 

 properties of the new foods before they could be 

 recommended for general use, and to point out that 

 although the food unit system is an excellent aid 



