SUMMER AND WINTER FEEDING OF CATTLE. 57 



cheaper, and simpler than two meals of hay and two of good 

 oat straw, along with 4 or 5 Ibs. of linseed cake per day ; 01 

 the cake may just as well be half linseed and half decorticated 

 cotton-seed ; or, indeed, and even preferably, it may all be de- 

 corticated cotton-cake. The cake will cost about 4d. per cow, 

 per day ; and beside saving its cost in hay and greatly improving 

 the manure heap, will leave the cows in better condition than 

 hay could possibly do, and also enable them to calve with less 

 straining and exhaustion. When cows are dry for calving they 

 commonly have to consume oat straw as the chief food, but oat 

 straw is sorry food alone, when all the oats have been threshed 

 out of it. 



A good deal has been written in recent years about rations 

 for cows in milk, and Professor Stewart, of America, recom- 

 mends the following, per day : 



Alburai- Carbo- 



noids. hydrates. Fat. 



Ibs. Ibs. Ibs. 



12 Ibs. of good meadow hay. . 0*65 4*92 O*I2 



3 Ibs. of maize meal . 0-25 1-81 0-14 



3 Ibs. of ground oats . . . 0-27 1-30 0-14 



3 Ibs. of wheat shorts . . . 0-27 i'64 O'oS 



4 Ibs. of linseed meal . . . i'io 1*32 0*28 



2-54 10-99 0*76 



These percentages of nutrients represent that fat should be 

 about one-third the weight of the albuminoids, and the albumin- 

 oids about one-fourth the weight of the carbo-hydrates, which last 

 consist of sugar, starch, gum, &c. ; and in the above formula 

 the three groups of nutrients are, chemically speaking, believed 

 to be in well-balanced proportion, which reduces the waste in 

 digestion to a minimum. 



An Important Point. 



It will be noticed in the foregoing table that the carbo- 

 hydrates and fat, the heat-producing elements of food, are in 

 very considerable proportion, and that the flesh-formers the 

 albuminoids are not. It will therefore be understood that the 



