FEEDING RATIOITS. 147 



If all this is true — and we think none will question it, 

 for it is unquestionable — then with wiiat justice can a 

 dairymaa insist that to devour the dung from a horse 

 stable will not harm a dairy cow, or to keep cows in 

 stables reeking with filth will not infect the milk ? A 

 w^ell-known dairyman once observed of milk from such a 

 stable, that *'it was hardly strong enough for good man- 

 ure, but it might do for that purpose better than for 

 food." 



CHAPTER XII. 

 FEEDING RATIONS. 



When the dairyman feeds his cows he is beginning his 

 work of manufacturing. He is supplying bis machines 

 with the raw material. We have seen what these mate- 

 rials are, and the purpose for which they are to be used; 

 let us now study the character of the machines used, and 

 the manner in which they may best be. supplied. 



Food is given to the cow to be digested. Digestion 

 consists of the mastication or grinding of the food in 

 the mouth; the maceration of it in the paunch or large 

 stomach — the first and second compartments of the 

 quadruple organ possessed by all ruminants ; the return 

 of it in small portions — the cud — into the mouth for a 

 second grinding ; the further maceration and pulping of 

 it in the third stomach or maniples between tlie rubbing 

 plates ,or leaves with which this part of the organ is 

 furnished, and its partial solution in the true digestive 

 stomach where it is subjected to the action of the gastric 

 fluid. The food then passes into the intestines. It is 

 in the form of a semi-fluid grayish mass, containing still 

 some undissolved food. 



The undissolved portions of the food are chiefly the 

 nitrogenous matters or albuminoids ; tliQ starch has been 



