CHAPTER XXII 

 CONCENTRATED FEEDS AND THEIR VALUE 



A concentrated feeding stuff is, as one would naturally 

 suppose, just the opposite of roughage. The two most com- 

 mon forms are seen in the grains of cereals and some other 

 agricultural plants, and in the by-products of mills, where the 

 cereals are converted into flour, breakfast foods, starch, etc. 

 There are some other concentrates, that are products of such 

 large manufacturing industries as the linseed and cotton-seed 

 oil mills, and the packing houses. These are all called con- 

 centrates, because as a rule they lack in coarse, fibrous 

 structure, and contain larger percentages of protein and 

 starchy matter than do forage plants. For example, the 

 grain of corn is a concentrate, one hundred pounds of which 

 contains fully three times as much digestible protein and 

 twice as much digestible carbohydrates as are found in corn 

 fodder. Using another illustration, gluten feed, which is 

 made as a by-product in the manufacturing of starch from 

 corn, contains three times as much protein as does the same 

 weight of corn. 



The cost of concentrated feeds is always much greater 

 than that of roughages. In fact, the cost of most feeds sold 

 on the market increases as the amount of protein in them 

 increases. Feeds like cotton-seed meal and tankage, con- 

 taining large amounts of this nutrient, are very high-priced, 

 although that does not mean that they are expensive feeds 

 to use. Sometimes the price of a certain concentrate is low 

 on account of a glutted market, or high because the supply is 

 exhausted. If, for example, the flax-seed crop of Russia and 

 America is very poor, then linseed oil meal is apt to be high- 



