VALUE OF CROP.S. U9 



weight, and is what intelligent farmers would, we think, call a 

 generous allowance. This feed was continued for the term of 

 fifteen days ; the same cow was then fed with the same quantity 

 of hay, and an addition of five pounds of shorts per day for 

 fifteen days more, and shows tlie very remarkable gain of 

 twenty-five and one-third pounds in that time, equal to one and 

 four-sixths pounds per day, or two hundred and ninety-eight 

 pounds from December 1st to May 20th. This increase of 

 weight is valued at four cents the pound, and all credited to 

 the shorts, making them worth $1.35 per hundred weight, or 

 $27 per ton. Now is this a fair trial of the value of shorts ? 

 Would the gain be in this proportion for any great length of 

 time, and if it would not, then must not the value of the shorts 

 be reduced in proportion to the falling off on the gain ? We 

 have seen, too, that the cost of keeping the cow in hay was at 

 the rate of 831.41 for the feeding season. Now 2,328 pounds of 

 shorts, at 81.35 per hundred weight, comes to '131.42, as the 

 cost of keeping a cow on shorts alone, supposing an animal 

 would live on shorts alone, and no other more bulky food be 

 necessary. This amount gives a fraction short of fourteen 

 pounds per day. Now if the animal will live on this amount 

 per day, give milk all the time, maintain herself in present 

 condition, then shorts are worth what is claimed ; and it shows 

 how much better for any one who buys feed, to buy them 

 instead of hay, as the saving of room, and also of labor, would 

 be of great account. 



Now are these things so ? Will a cow in milk thus keep in 

 present condition for a period of one hundred and seventy-one 

 days ? Your committee can hardly think she will on this 

 amount of shorts, and therefore cannot believe that shorts are 

 worth §27 per ton, when English hay is worth §15 per ton. 



Another trial from the same source also sets forth as remark- 

 able results as the other. In this case, meadow hay and corn 

 stover were substituted for English hay, and the loss as shown 

 by the statement is very remarkable, being at the rate of five 

 hundred and ninety-eight pounds for the feeding season. Now 

 can this be so ? Would the loss be so great for any length of 

 time on this feed ? The cow consumed twenty-one pounds of 

 hay and corn fodder, and five pounds of shorts per day, and 

 lost on this feed three and eleven-fifteenths pounds ])er day, 



