No. 4.] CATTLE FOODS. 17 



Next to a careful selection of seed of known vitality and 

 proper variety, the preparation of the seed-bed and its 

 thorough treatment are of paramount importance. The 

 assumption that grass crops will take care of themselves is 

 too common amons: us. There is no essential difference be- 

 tween the food wants of the plants which compose our grasses 

 and the nutritive requirements of the tillage crops. When 

 we harvest good crops of oats, corn or potatoes, it is because 

 we have fertilized them generously. The law of life which 

 so closely connects efficient nutrition with large milk, egg 

 and meat yields in animals is the same for plants. If the 

 grass crop could have as much attention as the corn and 

 potatoes, it would yield as liberally in proportion. 



Nitrogenous Plants. — Grain Kations. 



A great deal has been said, during the past two years, of 

 the need of growing more nitrogenous plants. This advice 

 has been urged as an argument for lessening the outlay for 

 such purchased feeding stuffs as we buy from Western grow- 

 ers, whether in the form of bran or corn meal. I don't think 

 the time is near when it will be economical to stop buying 

 cotton-seed meal or linseed meal. These two substances 

 form the very cheapest sources of nitrogen purchasable by 

 farmers. The largest and most prosperous milk producers 

 in our State are the men who use most liberally and intelli- 

 gently mixtures of these two substances. I would therefore 

 start out with this rule for feeding : A mixture of cotton- 

 seed and linseed meals in equal weights ; that these foods 

 should form from three to four tenths by weight of a mixture 

 of other grains, as bran, oat feed, corn or cob meal, and mid- 

 dlings ; that the cotton-seed and linseed fed to cows should 

 equal one-eighth of the weight of milk. Thus, a cow giving 

 twenty-four pounds of milk daily should have with other 

 grain three pounds of these two. Another giving forty 

 pounds daily should be able to eat five pounds of this grain. 

 A cow producing that quantity of milk, if not more than 

 twelve and a half per cent of dry matter, produces five 

 pounds of dry food. No beef animal ever produced such a 



