Leading Cereals and their By-products. 131 



matter and protein it contains, its volume not working against it 

 ■witli these animals. In steer feeding bran serves admirably with 

 corn in any form. Fed with this grain it gives bulk, supplies 

 protein, and keeps the animal from cloying, as it may when long 

 maintained on a single kind of feed, such as com. The stockman 

 feeding corn to his steers will find them making better gains and 

 showing better condition by using bran for one-third of the con • 

 centrates. The light character of the bran is well shown in cases 

 of over-feeding. Though a horse or cow may be gorged with 

 bran, it usually suffers no marked inconvenience therefrom,, while 

 an over-feed of corn or cotton-seed meal may produce fatal 

 gastric disturbances. 



Bran is par excellence a leading feed for the dairy cow, furnish 

 ing not only bulk, a desirable quality in this case, but protein and 

 ash matter, which are so much needed in the formation of milk. 

 As a complementary food to corn meal, the combination of bran 

 and that grain is not to be excelled. For young pigs bran is too 

 coarse and straw-like, (896) and middlings should be substituted 

 for it. For brood sows and older animals some bran may be fed 

 with profit, and may prove very useful if the remainder of the 

 ration is in concentrated form, for volume is necessary with the 

 feed of such animals. This by-product is also very satisfactory 

 in the sheep yard, being relished by fattening sheep, breeding 

 ewes and growing lambs. (463, 544, 640-42, 762, 855) 



176. Fertilizing ingredients. — We learn from the table that the 

 wheat grain is somewhat richer in nitrogen and mineral matter 

 than corn. The by-products of wheat in milling are much richer 

 in these particulars than the grain from which they are derived. 

 ^ High-grade flour is not rich in nitrogen or mineral matter. Low- 

 grade flour is rich in nitrogen but low in mineral matter. Dark 

 feeding flour is rich in nitrogen and mineral matter. Bran and 

 shorts carry all the elements of fertility in large quantity, and for 

 this reason are highly appreciated by those feeders whose interest 

 reaches beyond their cattle to the lands they till. (414) When 

 very low in price, bran may be used as a fertilizer by direct 

 application to the land, but such perversion should not be toler 

 ated. It should be first fed to animals and, through their drop 

 pings, it will reach the land almost undiminished in fertility. 



