1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 113 



been put upon this point, and it has been determined what 

 proportions are the best for many different kinds of animals, 

 and for these animals under difierent conditions. We will 

 take for an example the milch cow. It has been found that 

 if you feed a large number of cows of the same natural 

 capacity, or feed the same animals at difterent times on 

 rations that difler in the proportion of their parts, ranging 

 from a very wide ratio to a very narrow one, as the 

 ratio becomes more and more narrow, until it gets to one in 

 which there are about five andone-half parts of heat-producing 

 to one part of flesh-producing, it takes less and less food to 

 yield one pound of valuable produce, milk, butter, etc. If 

 you go on still ftirther, and give a ratio narrower than that, 

 you soon come to a ration which proves unhealthful to the 

 animal. This would seem to indicate that the best propor- 

 tion was one part of digestible flesh-producing, to five and 

 one-half parts of digestible heat-producing, material. This 

 is what is variously called the German ration, or the German 

 feedino; standard, or the theoretical ratio for milch cows. 

 Why it should be called theoretical does not appear, for it is 

 just the opposite of this. It is eminently practical. It is a 

 result arrived at, not by theory, nor by reasoning, but as a 

 result of many hundreds of carefully planned and executed 

 feeding tests at many different times, and by a large number 

 of different individuals. This proportion corresponds closely 

 with that in many foods which we all know to be first class. 

 The question naturally rises. What is the effect of feeding 

 rations not properly proportioned? If the ratio is too 

 wide, which means too large a proportion of the heat- 

 producing for the amount present of the ffesh-producing, 

 wherein does a loss occur ? In this case there is simply a 

 loss of the extra heat-producing material, which is principally 

 starch and sugar. There is no injury to the animal, unless 

 the ratio becomes so wide, and the amount of ffesh-pro- 

 ducing material so small, as not to give the animal all it 

 needs for its own sustenance ; and long before this point is 

 reached the animal will have shown by its behavior that 

 something is the trouble. If, on the contrary, the ratio is 

 too narrow, there is not only a loss of the extra ffesh-pro- 

 ducing material, but there is danger to the health of the 



