THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS 279 



The palatability of a food is important. By palatability we 

 mean the taste of the food. If an animal eats its feed greed- 

 ily, it is because it likes the feed, that is, the feed is palatable. 

 Some feeds show a very desirable composition, but, because 

 they do not taste good, animals will not eat enough of them 

 to produce good results. Then, too, when a food tastes good 

 the digestive juices in the mouth, stomach, and intestines are 

 secreted in greater quantity to digest the food, and, conse- 

 quently, a larger quantity of the food is digested and used 

 by the animal. 



In the table of Digestible Nutrients (see Appendix) it will 

 be seen that the various kinds of feeding stuffs are grouped 

 together. 1. Green fodder is a roughage fed green. The dry 

 matter in green fodder is quite small. This is because green 

 plants have a large per cent, of water in them. The amount 

 of protein, carbohydrates, and fat in one hundred pounds of 

 green fodder is small when compared with that in one hun- 

 dred pounds of the dry fodders. 2. The dry fodders and hays 

 are the green fodders cut and cured. The dry matter and 

 food elements are large in this group. 3. The straws have 

 a large amount of dry matter and crude fibre, but are very 

 poor in protein and fat. 4. Roots and tubers have less dry 

 matter and fewer food elements than any other group of feeds, 

 except milk and its products. However, roots and tubers are 

 valuable feeds, because of their good effect in keeping the 

 digestive system of the animal in good condition. 5. Grains 

 and other seeds are high in dry matter, protein, carbohy- 

 drates, and some of them in fat. They belong to the concen- 

 trates. 6. Mill produxits are nothing but the grains ground 

 into meal. Their composition is not greatly different from 

 the unground grain. The feeds given in the table up to 



