1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 461 



particular diet, as far as net cost of feed is concerned. 

 Although it must be acknowledged that, even in one and the 

 same feeding experiment, most likely no two animals would 

 show strictly corresponding relations in that direction, it 

 remains not less true that it is a most commendable practice, 

 in a general farm management, to consider carefully the 

 relative value of the fertilizing constituents contained in the 

 various fodder articles which present themselves for our 

 choice in the compounding of suitable fodder rations. Our 

 allowance of a loss of thirty per cent, of the essential fertil- 

 izing constituents contained in the food consumed, in conse- 

 quence of the development and growth of the animal, is 

 purposely a liberal one. The adoption of this basis for our 

 estimate tends to strengthen our conclusion that the raising 

 of pigs for the home market can be made a profitable branch 

 of farm industry, even with comparatively limited resources. 



It has been stated that, during our III., IV., V., VI. and 

 Vn. experiments, the same fodder articles, skim milk, corn 

 meal, wheat bran and gliften meal, had been used to com- 

 pound the daily diet ; and that the seventh feeding experi- 

 ment had yielded the highest profits on the same basis of 

 selling price. As the daily fodder rations thus in all of these 

 trials had consisted of the same kind of fodder ingredients, 

 and as at all periods of the experiments the call for food had 

 been attended to with care, it became evident that the par- 

 ticular mode of combining at different times the same fodder 

 ingredients to make up the daily diet had to be considered 

 the principal cause of the difference in our results. 



To test the correctness of this conclusion it was decided 

 to constitute a new experiment. The same mode of com- 

 pounding the daily fodder ration for different periods of 

 growth, which had been adopted during the seventh experi- 

 ment, was to be carried out with a new lot of pigs. (See 

 experiments VIII. and IX. further on.) 



The following short abstract, taken from a more detailed 

 description of the seventh feeding experiment in our last 

 annual report, cannot fail to assist in a desirable understand- 

 ing of the question involved : — 



Seven animals, crosses between White Chester and Black 

 Berkshire, served in this experiment (VIE.). Their live 



