38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Let us study this table for a moment. Taking all of our 

 more common foods that are raised on the farm and averag- 

 ing their composition, we find that the " nutritive ratio" is 

 as 1 to 14 ; that is, for every pound of albuminoids that we 

 raise we get fourteen pounds of non-albuminoids ; but for 

 milk production at most we cannot make use of more than 

 seven pounds of the latter to one of the former, so we must 

 conclude that we are raising twice as much starch, sugar, oil, 

 etc., as we can profitably use. 



But how shall we correct this ? The answer often given in 

 practice has been, and is now, many times, feed cornmeal ; 

 but cornmeal is also too plentiful in starchy compounds, 

 having over nine pounds to one of albuminoids ; it is there- 

 fore utterly unsuited to the duty of supplying the natural 

 deficiency in our coarse fodders. The true, scientific and 

 practical method of supplementing these fodders is to take 

 some food having an excess of albuminoids, thus making the 

 excess of the one compensate for the deficiency of the other ; 

 and we may select from the following : cotton-seed meal, 

 gluten, gluten feed, linseed (new or old process), wheat, 

 middlings, shorts, etc. 



We are now in position to consider the actual compound- 

 ing of rations, and may ask the question. How shall a farmer 

 make use of the feeding standards and table of feeding 

 stufis ? 



For a concise answer I would say. Use it just as your wife 

 uses her cook book. It gives you the same information rela- 

 tive to feeding a cow that the cook book gives her when she 

 makes cream pie, that is, it tells the amount and kinds of 

 digestible material that a cow ought to have to produce good 

 results. It doesn't pretend to be the only combination from 

 which good results may be expected, any more than Hood's 

 cook book pretends to have the only combination of cooking 

 materials which will make cream pie, but it is based on hun- 

 dreds of practical feeding experiments, and may be accepted 

 by any farmer as a good, safe, practical guide to work by ; 

 and if every milk-producing cow in Massachusetts could be 

 fed this winter by this table, there would be an increase of 

 more than one-fourth in the milk and butter produced. Now, 

 isn't it worth trying ? 



