112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



butter. A glance at a table of the chemical composition of 

 feedino; stufts will show how this can be. It will then be 

 seen that ensilage and corn meal have about the same ratio, 

 brewers' grains and linseed meal but little different, roots 

 and cotton-seed meal not nearly so different chemically as 

 one would suppose from their opposite physical properties. 

 And, judging from the chemist's stand-point, there is no rea- 

 son for thinking that the cow desires any different food 

 from which to make a large flow of milk than to produce 

 largely of butter ; both the milk and the butter are first pro- 

 duced as flesh in the cow's body, and are then liquefied. In 

 each case they want a food that will produce flesh. Paren- 

 thetically, I might add that I do not take much stock in the 

 feeding of cows differently for milk than for Imtter, since I 

 believe that the individuality of the cow is the leading factor 

 in the case, and the feed is subordinate. 



Provided the food is healthful, that it is relished by the 

 animal, that it is of the proper bulk, and that the propor- 

 tions of its digestible parts are right, it makes no difference 

 from what source this digestible part is obtained. That is, 

 a pound of digestible flesh-producing material from corn is 

 just as valuable as a pound of the same material from hay, 

 and no more so. A pound of starch from cotton-seed meal 

 has the same feeding value as the same quantity from ensi- 

 lage. Digestible woody fibre is the same, and has the same 

 feeding value in all fodders. There is one exception to this, 

 however, in the case of the so-called fat, or that part of the 

 fodder which is soluble in ether. That extracted by ether 

 from grain is a true fat, and has a high feeding value, while 

 what a chemist calls fat from a coarse fodder is quite largely 

 coloring matter, and its feeding value is probably small. 

 But, in general, we can say that a pound of digestible heat- 

 producing material under like conditions has the same feed- 

 ing value, no matter what its source, and the same is true of 

 the flesh-producing. 



So far we have named the considerations which would 

 hold true in regard to the proportion that is best for these 

 two parts of fodder, the heat-producing and the flesh-pro- 

 ducing. We now come to the question as to what that 

 proportion is that is the best. A great deal of study has 



