No. 4.] SALT MARSH HAY. 39 



How TO AD,jusT Cost of Food and Value or Pkoduct 

 IN Most Profitablk Eelatiox to Each Other. 



The limit of profitable feeding is fixed first of all by the 

 cow herself; but the relative cost of food and value of 

 product modify this limit to a considerable extent. Let me 

 illustrate this. A given cow may be able to consume daily 

 fifteen pounds of digestible dry matter, and she may produce 

 a can of milk at a cost of fifteen cents ; the same cow may 

 easily be induced to consume twenty pounds of dry matter, 

 but the milk yield may only be increased a trifle, so that the 

 cost of a can of milk is eighteen cents. Or the food supply 

 may be cut down to thirteen pounds per day, and the shrink- 

 age be so little that the cost of milk shall amount to only 

 fourteen cents. Now, if a further reduction should show an 

 increase in the cost per can, then we may assume that the 

 limit of profitable feeding with that cow is somewhere in the 

 vicinity of thirteen pounds of dry matter per day. Another 

 cow side by side with this one may be able to consume 

 twenty pounds, and still produce milk at the lowest cost 

 which in her case is attainable. The two cows have diflerent 

 capacity for turning food into milk. Now, as we approach 

 the limit of a cow's capacity to do profitable work for us, 

 we must feed with greater care ; and under these circum- 

 stances it is the little things like a few cents difference in 

 cost of gi'ain or the substitution of a nitrofjenous for a 

 non-nitrogenous food that show the skill and intellio-ence of 

 the feeder. 



Again, as the cost of food and value of product come closer 

 and closer together, the cost of every item of food must be 

 counted with greater care. If milk brought fifty cents per 

 can, instead of twentv-five cents, then we might indulge in 

 more of extravaijance in feedins; ; but when the cost of a 

 day's keep is twenty cents and the milk sells for but twenty- 

 five cents, the margin is so narrow that the greatest care 

 must be exercised if we are to show a balance on the right 

 side at the end of the jear. 



