44 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



By mixing cotton-seed meal with wheat or rye straw, all 

 the digestible carbo-hydrates of the straw can be utilized ; 

 but as about one-half of the straw is indigestible, under any 

 conditions, it will not become first-class food, even with the 

 cotton-seed mixed with it. 



The scientific question of to-day is not, "What is any crop 

 worth when fed by itself, as compared with good English 

 hay?" but rather, "How can we grow, harvest and mix other 

 crops, so as to make them equal to English hay?" Good 

 pasture-grass — that is, grass that is eaten in a week after it 

 is grown — is the most perfect food for cattle. The elements 

 are in the right proportion ; it is easily digested, and a very 

 large per cent, of it is digestible. Very early cut, well-cured 

 English hay is the best dry food, if but one kind is to be 

 used. 



For making milk, in ripe hay, — except, perhaps, that made 

 from Hungarian grass, — in corn-fodder, and in corn-meal, 

 there is not enough of the albuminoids to use up all the carbo- 

 hydrates. It is probable that a part of the, nutritive value 

 of much of the corn-meal, corn-fodder, English hay, — from 

 being too ripe, — salt hay and fresh meadow hay, fed in Essex 

 County to-day, is lost for the want of albuminoids. 



Professor Atwater says, "There are two great sources of 

 loss in our common systems of feeding. One is, that we often 

 fail to h ive enough albuminoids in the food to secure the most 

 complete digestion. Another is, that forage crops are not 

 cut when young and easily digested, but are allowed to stand 

 until they are nearly ripe, and much of their material has 

 become indigestible, and, of course, nearly useless as nourish- 

 ing food." 



I look upon the discovery of this loss in stock-feeding, 

 together with the discovery of how this loss may be saved, as 

 one of the greatest discoveries of modern times. 



Decorticated cotton-seed meal and Hungarian grass are 

 sources from which plenty of albuminoids may be drawn to 

 utilize our carbo-hydrates. One hundred pounds of the best 

 cotton-seed meal has twenty-eight pounds of digestible albu- 

 minoids and seventeen of carbo-hydrates. Now, as it needs 

 but four pounds — even when used for making milk — of albu- 

 minoids for its own carbo-hydrates, it has twenty-four pounds 



