RELATION OF FOOD TO PRODUCTION 419 



dry matter is largely diluted with water. It would be 

 equally absurd to accept the dry matter in the ration as 

 a standard. In instituting a comparison between bo vines 

 and swine, we must remember that the former consume 

 materials much less digestible than do the latter, and so a 

 unit weight of food does not represent the same weight of 

 available nutrients with the two classes of animals. 



We should, so far as possible, reduce rations to their 

 units of nutritive value, and so the digestible dry matter 

 is now the nearest approach we can make to a basis for 

 comparing rations with each other or with the produc- 

 tion which they sustain. It follows, then, that if we wish 

 to show the comparative economy of production in dairy 

 farming and in beef farming, food alone considered, we 

 should express this relation on one side in terms of digesti- 

 ble dry food substance.* 



508. The unit of production. What shall we con- 

 sider as a unit of production? We may answer this 

 question from two standpoints. We may measure pro- 

 duction by the quantity of the commercial article which 

 the farmer places on the market, or by the actual contribu- 

 tion which any given production makes to the food 

 resources of the human family. More specifically stated, 

 we may determine the relation of a unit of digestible 

 food substance to the live animal, beef, pork, milk, cheese, 

 butter, or eggs resulting from its use, and calculate the 

 ratio of any one of these to the actual nutrients con- 

 sumed, or we may ascertain the ratio of food consump- 

 tion to the edible dry substance in the various animal 



*Since the above was written, we are able to reduce the food unit 

 for production to what is termed production value. This is more funda- 

 mental than the digestible matter as a basis for comparison. The com- 

 parisons hereafter made are, however, with the digestible matter con- 

 sumed as related to the unit of production. 



