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BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



milk, there must be provided daily an amount of food that 

 should supply two and one-half pounds of digestible albu- 

 minoids and thirteen and one-half pounds of digestible non- 

 albuminoids; and this is the German feeding standard, 

 having a nutritive ratio of 1:5.^-; or, in other words, a cow 

 requires five and one-half pounds of non-albuminoids for 

 every pound of all)uminoids that she consumes. 



The following is the German table of feeding standards : — 



Wliat Cattle require daily. 



There is a question that is being discussed at the present 

 time, namely, whether we need so narrow a "nutritive 

 ratio," or stated another way, whether we need two and one- 

 half pounds of albuminoids and thirteen and one-half of 

 non-albuminoids, or whether less of the former and more 

 of the latter will not do as well. 



As long ago as 1888, in Bulletin No. 4 of the New Hamp- 

 shire Experiment Station, I said : " I am satisfied, from the 

 feeding experiments that have been conducted on our college 

 farm, that a considerable variation from the foreign standards 

 may be economical, and that instead of 1 : 5.4 we can do 

 better with a nutritive ratio of 1 : 6 or 1 : 7. This may be 

 considered a pretty wide variation, but I believe that the 

 cheapness with which we can produce starchy food (non- 

 albuminoids) makes these wider ratios more profitable." 



Again, in 1889, Bulletin No. 8, New Hampshire Experi- 

 ment Station, is the following : " I am of the opinion that if 

 we get the ' ' nutritive ratio " anywhere between 1 : 6 and 

 1 : 7 we shall still have a well balanced ration." 



