150 THE DAIRYMAK's MAJTlTAL. • 



stances he works with. The principles of feeding are 

 these: an animal digests its food and a process of assimi- 

 lation follows ; assimilation is the conversion of the di- 

 gested food into blood, and then into flesh, milk, fat or 

 butter. Xone of these products can come into existence 

 unless the elements of them are given in the food. No 

 food can be changed into these products unless it is 

 digestible. Therefore, to produce milk and butter most 

 profitably, the dairyman must choose such food as is 

 the most easily digested — that contains the most of the 

 elements that are required — and he must give them in 

 such quantity that the cow can digest them most per- 

 fectly and up to the largest quantity possible. 



A large variety of food substances are at the service 

 of the dairyman, all differing in market value as well as 

 feeding value, some being cheap and some dear. A com- 

 parison of these foods will show hovr some may be pro- 

 cured for less money than others, and perhaps produce 

 cheaper milk and butter. 



But in choosing foods the experimental tests and chem- 

 ical investigations of the German agricultural schools 

 will be of much value. While animals differ individually, 

 yet on the whole there is a universal law of Nature which 

 controls natural operations, and the general causes being 

 the same, and bound by these universal laws, the results 

 are very similar. So that what happens in one herd or 

 in many, as the result of feeding certain foods to cows, 

 is most likely to happen to all, when the circumstances 

 of the feeding are similar. Hence the method of feed- 

 ing is of much importance. 



In considering this question we will assume, as the 

 majority of dairymen are apt to believe, that practical 

 experience is worth much more than chemical analysis 

 and scientific theory, and the following results of some 

 careful tests made by the writer with a Jersey cow 

 which had been fed and kept as a test cow for three 



