994 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK x. 



. " The young grass eaten on a pasture is seen by the figures already 

 given to be a food tolerably rich in albuminoids (alb. ratio 1 : 6*4) ; 

 young clover will be still richer. A good pasture will supply a food 

 suitable for an average production of milk. When, however, a pasture 

 is not full of young grass, or if the milk production is above an 

 average, additional food, rich in albuminoids, should be given. When 

 a cow is in a stall, and fed with hay, straw-chaff, and roots, the 

 addition of a considerable amount of rich nitrogenous food is still 

 more necessary if the cow is to do her best. The foods recognised as 

 especially suitable for a milking cow, as brewers' grains, wheat bran, 

 bean meal, and cotton cake, are all characteristicalty rich in albu- 

 minoids, as is shown by the table already given. It is, however, quite 

 impossible to give, as is sometimes done, a fixed albuminoid ratio for 

 the diet of a milking cow, for the simple reason that its requirements 

 vary so greatly in different stages of its lactation ; the yield of milk by 

 different cows is also very various. A better plan is that adopted by 

 Sir J. B. Lawes at Kothamsted, in which the milk given by each cow 

 is every day recorded, and the supply of cotton cake and bran is raised 

 or diminished with the rise or fall of the yield of milk, the other foods 

 being given ad libitum. Thus when a cow was yielding 1 gallon of 

 milk per day it would receive about 2 Ib. of cotton cake and 2 Ib. of 

 bran ; and when yielding 5 gallons of milk, 7 Ib. of cake and 7 Ib. of 

 bran. It is impossible by the best feeding to turn a badly milking cow 

 into a good one ; but it is possible by sustaining the cow with proper 

 food at the period of her greatest milk production to prolong that 

 profitable period very considerably. 



" We come lastly to the case of the fattening animal, and here we 

 meet with a considerable divergence of opinion as to the necessity or 

 not for a high albuminoid ratio in the diet. There are many agri- 

 cultural teachers who recommend a higher albuminoid ratio for the 

 food of a fattening ox, sheep, or pig than they do for a cow in full 

 milk ! . When we recollect that the increase which a fattening animal 

 puts on is chiefly fat, a non-nitrogenous substance, and that the albu- 

 minoid ratio of the animal increase is really only 1 : 20, the recom- 

 mendation that the diet of a fattening animal should be highly 

 nitrogenous must certainly excite surprise. At one time it was taught 

 by a certain school of physiologists that fat was formed solely out of 

 albuminoids, but this idea has been abandoned as contrary to fact, and 

 it is now admitted on all hands that fat is certainly formed in the 

 animal from carbohydrates. The German digestion experiments show 

 indeed that a diet poor in albuminoids is somewhat less fully digested 

 than one richer in these constituents, but as the mischief only begins 

 when the albuminoid ratio is lower than 1 : 8, this fact can hardly have 

 much weight in determining the present question. If we look at the 

 results of. careful feeding experiments, we find abundant evidence in 

 the case of pigs and sheep that a diet of no higher albuminoid ratio 

 than 1 : 8 is capable of giving excellent results as a fattening food, if 

 it contains a considerable amount of cereal corn ; for a fattening diet 

 must always be a concentrated diet. The results of experiments with 



