450 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



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 farm 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 gen- 

 eral record of a fodder for a practical agricultural purpose — 

 is that of " Nutritive Ratio." These words are used to ex- 

 press the numerical relation of its digestible nitrogenous sub- 

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

 ible non-nitwgenous 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 diff'erent ages and for different func- 

 tions, 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 — other- 

 wise 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 nutritions 

 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 

 digestible nitroofenous 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 



