188 The Feeding of Animals 



of feeding. At the same time, it was necessary only to 

 attend a farmers' convention fifty years ago to become 

 convinced of a great variety of opinions as to the best 

 methods of practice. In fact, opinion was the court 

 of last resort. There were then no known, well-estab- 

 lished fundamentals to which appeal could be made as 

 a basis for discussion. While many false notions were 

 entertained, many of the beliefs then prevailing were 

 undoubtedly correct or contained a germ of truth. It 

 is generally safe to assume that when an opinion is 

 widely and persistently held it is not altogether with- 

 out reason or foundation. It is often the expression, 

 in more or less correct terms, of some important prin- 

 ciple. No one should lightly turn aside from the 

 traditions and convictions of a community in regard 

 to any line of practice. A knowledge of the precepts 

 governing the feeder's art that are the accumulation 

 of experience in the care of animals is to be respected 

 and is, to a great extent, essential to successful prac- 

 tice. It is also true that little substantial progress 

 can be realized in any art if its underlyiug truths are 

 not understood, for when this is the case the results 

 of experience under one set of conditions do not serve 

 as a guide under circumstances entirely different. 



PRACTICAL FEEDING EXPERIMENTS 



With the advent of modern science and of the 

 efforts to utilize it in agriculture, an attempt has been 

 made to search for important truths more systematically, 

 an effort undertaken chiefly by experiment stations. As 



