No. 4.] FEEDING OF DAIRY COWS. 127 



If you compare rice with oatmeal you will find that the 

 difference between these two means a great deal for the race. 

 It shows the difference between the Scotchmen and the 

 Chinese. Oatmeal or rice, — it means a great deal. If you 

 use a well-balanced ration, then you will be a well-condi- 

 tioned, effective individual. Down here I am told that you 

 are fond of baked beans, but baked beans are not quite 

 wholesome and economical when eaten alone. You see they 

 are rather rich in albuminoids as compared with oatmeal. 

 You will be right in measuring all those .things — and prob- 

 ably most other things — by the Scotch standard; and if 

 you will put with your baked beans a small quantity of pork 

 (you see the pork has too much fat and far too little albumi- 

 noids), then you will get a capital combination as to its 

 nutritive ratio. Then take other thino-s. Oatmeal and 

 milk make a capital mixture. In potatoes you have far too 

 little of the nitrogenous in proportion to the carbohydrates. 

 How can you adjust that to make it good food for nourishing 

 the best class of human flesh ? I am speaking of man in his 

 material nature only, you see. If you take the milk and 

 take the fat out, and then add the remainder to the potatoes, 

 why, you make the diet as good as a Scotchman's diet of 

 oatmeal and milk. Thus potatoes and buttermilk for the 

 Irishman, judged by the results, are not a bad combina- 

 tion. 



I have mentioned these three typical foods to say that it 

 was not an intuition that led people to combine these things ; 

 but it required long experiments, probably extending over 

 several centuries, before we learned how to make an eco- 

 nomical diet of the correct nutritive ratio suitable for our- 

 selves, and it is by long-continued and carefully conducted 

 experiments that we have been led to the making of a ration 

 of the correct nutritive ratio for our cattle. The cow was 

 made to be a servant of man, and if a man persists in feeding 

 a cow in disreijard of the results from the long-continued 

 experience of others, he will find that he is not following a 

 very profitable or noble vocation. But if you will put these 

 constituents in correct proportion in the cow's feed, getting 

 them at the lowest possible rate of cost from your own fields, 

 then the feeding of cows becomes one of the most profitable 



