No. 4.] FEEDS AND FEEDING. 19 



ration should consist of at least half ground grains by weight. 

 If we want to make our ration still more forcing we should 

 cause our hens to eat a still greater proportion of the ground 

 grains. 



The following chart shows the value of skim milk as a 

 food, and its data were supplied by an experiment carried 

 on at the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station a few 

 years ago. A sow weighing 23 pounds was placed in a pen 

 in the month of May, where she could get nothing to eat 

 -except what was given her. She was fed wholly on skim 

 milk for one year, at the end of which time she weighed 

 about 406 pounds, and produced 10 pigs, the total weight of 

 which at birth was 23 pounds. The sow and pigs were con- 

 tinued on the same ration, and when the latter were six weeks 

 old they averaged 18.6 pounds apiece'. We know of no ex- 

 periment that has ever been carried on that shows more con- 

 clusively the value of skim milk as a food. It should be 

 used for poultry when obtainable at 25 to 30 cents per 

 hundred pounds. Better results will follow if it is soured 

 before feeding, as the increased amount of lactic acid aids 

 digestion. 



Table 6. — • Value of Skim MWk as a Food for Animals. 



Pounds. 



Weight at beginning of experiment, 23.0 



Weight one year later, 406.0 



Weight of 10 pigs produced, 23.0 



Average weight of pigs at six weeks of age, . . . .18.6 



. Concentrated Feeds. 

 Just as concentrates have enabled the dairyman to develop 

 the modern cow, so they have enabled us to develop the hen 

 into the modern egg machine. Were we to feed poultry as it 

 was done forty or fifty years ago, we would not get any more 

 eggs than were produced then. At that time, on many farms, 

 hens were not expected to lay except during the spring and 

 early summer. The reason they laid in the spring so well 

 was because of the green feed, worms, bugs, etc., that they 

 were able to pick up. But concentrates, such as meat meal, 

 gluten feed, oil meal, etc., have enabled us to feed the hen 



