36 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



More than two hundred fodder articles have thus far been 

 studied under varying circumstances, and most of our cur- 

 rent kinds of fodders have been tested in Europe and else- 

 where, in numerous well-conducted feeding experiments 

 with a suitable selection of different kinds of firm live- 

 stock. This fact imparts to many of the results recorded a 

 sufficient importance to recommend them as a basis of new 

 feeding trials, with feed stuffs raised in our climate, or 

 obtained in our home industries. 



The last, but not least important, column of the statement of 

 the chemical analysis — quite frequently found in the general 

 record of a fodder for a practical agricultural purpose — is 

 that of " Nutritive Ratio." These words are used to express 

 the numerical relation of its digestible nitrogenous sub- 

 stances taken as one, as compared with the sum of its digest- 

 ible non-nitrogenous organic substances, fat included. The 

 information derived from that statement is very important; 

 for it means to express the summary of results secured by 

 actual feeding trials under specified conditions, and with the 

 aid of the best-endorsed chemical modes to account for the 

 constituents of the food before and after it has served for 

 the support of the animal on trial. 



Experience has shown that different kinds of animals, as 

 well as the same kind at different ages and for different 

 functions, require a different proportion of the essential 

 groups of food constituents to produce in each case the best 

 results. A statement of the nutritive ratio of a fodder 

 article — otherwise well adapted as an ingredient of a daily 

 diet in the case under consideration — indicates the direction 

 in which the material has to be supplemented to economize 

 to a full extent its various constituents. 



Practical trials with milch cows have demonstrated that 

 they require for the highest production of a good milk and 

 the maintenance of a healthy live weight, the most nutritious 

 food we are in the habit of giving to full-grown farm animals. 

 Careful examinations into the composition of an efficient diet 

 for milch cows have shown that it contains one part of 

 disrestible nitrogenous matter to from five to five and a half 

 parts of digestible non-nitrogenous organic matter. A due 

 consideration of these facts renders it but natural that a 



