1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 115 



that the animals like the corn, and if given a sufficient 

 quantity of it will yield a fair amount of product ; but this 

 product is obtained at the expense of a waste of considerable 

 of the starch and sugar contained in the hay and corn. 

 What the farmer should buy in the place of corn meal, or at 

 least in the place of most of it, should be something with a 

 narrow ratio, such as bran, cotton-seed, middlings, oil meal, 

 gluten meal, etc. 



The price of these different grains, and the nearness of 

 the farmer to the source of the supply, has a powerful effect 

 on the proportion which will be the most economical for 

 him to employ. Corn in its various forms, that is, as grain, 

 dry stover, dry fodder corn, green fodder corn and ensilage, 

 is undoubtedly the cheapest source of animal food which 

 we can grow in this climate, next after hay, which we all 

 know is the cheapest feed. A ration to be profitable, then, 

 must be composed very largely of these fodders, and it will 

 therefore be wider than the German standard. Whatever 

 we buy and bring in from off the farm should l^e of such a 

 nature that a small amount of it will balance up, to make 

 a perfect ration, a much larger amount of the cheapest 

 fodders which we can raise on the farm ; that is, they must 

 be rich in the nitrogenous or flesh-producing material. 

 Such materials are found in linseed meal, cotton-seed meal, 

 gluten meal, bran, middlings, brewers' grains, buckwheat 

 middlings, and several others of the by-products or refuse 

 material from various manufactures. We have said that a 

 ration of wider proportions than the German standard would 

 probably be a cheaper ration than one as narrow as the 

 German desire. Let us calculate the cost of some rations, 

 and see how it would be. Taking prices as they are at the 

 present time, we may consider hay worth $8.00 a ton ; good 

 corn fodder, $5.00; corn meal, $20.00 ; cotton-seed meal, 

 $26.00; and bran, $20.00. To make a full day's ration 

 for a cow weighing a thousand pounds, according to the 

 German standard, would require nine pounds of hay, nine 

 pounds of corn stalks, four of bran, four of corn meal, three 

 of cotton-seed meal. This would cost at these prices 17.75 

 cents. To make the same ration on a basis of 1 : 7 instead of 

 1:5.4, would require twelve pounds of hay, twelve pounds 



