INTRODUCTION 5 



This interdependence of man and the lower orders 

 of life has a vast economic significance. A large part 

 of human activity is devoted to the production and 

 transportation of food for animals and to the traffic in 

 the products of the dairy, slaughter-house, and sheep- 

 fold, and to their utilization in various ways. The pros- 

 perity of every farm is maintained to a greater or less 

 extent by feeding domestic animals, and our railroads, 

 our markets, in fact, nearly all our important business 

 enterprises, are more or less dependent upon the extent 

 and prosperity of animal husbandry. 



THE CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN 

 FEEDING ANIMALS 



The first and simplest form of animal husbandry is 

 that which was practised by the nomad. His flocks 

 and herds subsisted wholly by grazing and were moved 

 from place to place according to the supply of forage 

 afforded by different localities. No shelter was pro- 

 vided for the animals and no food was stored for their 

 use. The only intelligence or special knowledge that 

 was brought to bear upon the business of the herdsman 

 was a familiarity with the traditions and superstitions 

 touching the care of cattle and the acquaintance which 

 a roving life would give with the pastures furnishing 

 the most abundant and sweetest wild grasses during the 

 various seasons of the year. There was not then even 

 a dim promise of the modern traffic in meats or of the 

 fine art of dairying as we now know it. As man began to 

 give up this wandering life, erect permanent dwellings, 

 and confine his ownership of land to definite limits, he 

 acquired the art of tillage, not only that he might have 



