CHAPTER XV 



THE FEEDING STUFFS 



676. Sources of feeding stuffs. In the several chapters of 

 Part III the feed requirements of different classes of farm 

 animals and for different forms of production have been con- 

 sidered. 



In the more primitive forms of animal husbandry, such as 

 the pastoral husbandry of ancient times or the range feeding 

 of the western United States, these requirements were met by 

 the consumption of the natural products of the soil. Increas- 

 ing population and rising land values, however, mevitably 

 tend to the displacement of pastoral agriculture by more in- 

 tensive forms in which a much greater variety of feeding stuffs 

 is available for domestic animals. Forage crops are grown 

 for use in the winter and to supplement the deficiencies of the 

 pasture ; grain is produced in excess of the effective demand for 

 human consumption and utilized as stock feed ; finally, as this 

 surplus of grain decreases with the growing requirement for 

 human food, a great variety of residues from the preparation 

 of the crude products of the farm for man's use, the by-product 

 feeds, becomes available to the stockman. 



It does not fall within the province of the present work to 

 consider either the problems of agronomy connected with the 

 production of feeding stuffs or the technical details of the 

 manufacturing processes which yield the various by-product 

 feeds, but a brief consideration of the general properties of the 

 principal classes of feeding stuffs seems desirable as an intro- 

 duction to the discussion of the principles determining their 

 nutritive values 



677. Classification. The three main classes of feeding stuffs, 

 as already stated in Chapter II (111), are the coarse fodders, 

 or roughages, consisting of the vegetative organs of plants, the 

 roots and tubers, and the concentrates, the latter comprising 

 both the grains and similar farm products and the by-products 

 of divers industries. The members of these three classes of 



