402 Feeds and Feeding. 



water-free lean meat, while the dairy cow during the same period, 

 when yielding 10 quarts of milk daily, returns in this milk 6.6 

 pounds of nitrogenous substance, casein and albumen, or six times 

 as much. Of mineral matter the ox stores during the week .22 

 pounds, while the dairy cow secretes in her milk 1.35 pounds, or 

 again, about six times as much. The steer adds to his carcass 

 9.53 pounds of fat, while in the milk of the cow there are 6.33 

 pounds of fat, or two-thirds as much. During this time, how- 

 ever, the cow has secreted in her milk 8.32 pounds of milk sugar, 

 against which there is no comparable substance in the flesh of the 

 ox. Eeducing this sugar to its fat equivalent, (60) the cow is 

 shown to have yielded as much fat or fat equivalent as has the 

 steer. Commenting on this table, La wes and Gilbert write:' 



''Thus, as compared with fattening increase, which may, in a 

 sense, be said to be little more than an accumulation of reserve 

 material from excess of food, milk is a special product of a special 

 gland for a special normal exigency of the animal." 



Thome, of the Ohio Station,* comparing the returns from 

 steers and dairy cows, concludes that the steer gains three pounds 

 in live weight when consuming the same quantity of feed as the 

 cow when producing one pound of butter-fat. 



In this country, where stock foods are still so abundant and 

 population sparse, we use the flesh of animals freely, even waste- 

 fully. "When population grows dense, the ox will be the first to 

 disappear from our agriculture because it is not an economical 

 producer of human food, while the dairy cow will remain an 

 economical instrument for that purpose. (695) 



613. Yield of products. — A good dairy cow will yield in one 

 year 6,600 pounds of milk, in which there are: 



285 pounds of fat. 

 876 pounds of milk sugar. 

 220 pounds of casein and albumen. 

 49 pounds of ash. 



Total, 930 pounds of solids. 

 These substances are practically all digestible. 



Loc. cit. » Rept. 1893. 



