CLOVER IN FEEDING RATIONS, 



CHAPTER X. 



No practical work on clover culture would be complete 

 without a clear and definite statement of the use and value of 

 the different varieties, both as pasture and forage, in the feed- 

 ing ration needed for different kinds of stock under different 

 conditions and circumstances. American farmers are but be- 

 ginning to discuss this important matter, and the more expen- 

 sive the various articles of stock feed become on account of the 

 higher price of land and labor, the more important and indeed 

 essential it will be to learn how to feed thjm to advantage, and 

 with the least waste, whether of the clovers or other parts of 

 the ration. The problem is usually regarded as too abstruse 

 and difficult for the practical, every-dayfarmer. While there 

 are many difficulties connected with this problem, and even 

 those best informed on the subject have much to learn, the 

 elementary principles are simple enough. It is obvious from 

 a moment's reflection, that every part of the animal frame 

 must be derived directly or indirectly from the plant. No 

 animal can live on air alone, or upon the soil on which it 

 treads. In the story of the creation we are told that the herb 

 yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit were created before 

 either man or animal was formed to consume them. This is 

 simple enough. While the frame of the animal is mostly 

 carbon and nitrogen, both elements of the air it breathes, 

 there is no possible way in which they can become part of it 

 except through the medium of plant food. The flesh and food- 

 forming elements of the animal must first appear in the plant. 

 The plant is the medium through which the materials exist- 

 ing in earth and air become adapted to the life of the animal. 

 The most costly element in all food, either of the animal or 

 the plant, is in the form of nitrogenous compounds of different 

 kinds, which we group under the one term, nitrogen. Some 

 writers call it protein, some albuminoids, but all three mean 

 practically the same thing, the flesh-forming elements of the 

 food. The atmosphere which the animal breathes is foui- 



