Feeding Experiments Avith Milch Coavs. 



NOVEMBER, 1890, TO MAY, 1891. 



In summing up in our late annual report the principal results ob- 

 tained in connection with a series of feeding experiments with milch 

 cows carried on from 1885 to 1889 at the Massachusetts State Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station, special attention was called to the fact, 

 that until quite recently our main object had been to compare the 

 economical value of some of our most prominent current home-raised 

 coarse fodder articles when used for dairy purposes. English hay, 

 rowen (hay of second cut of upland meadows), dry fodder corn, corn 

 stover, corn ensilage, and several varieties of roots were the fodder 

 articles of that description used. They were fed as far as practicable 

 under otherwise corresponding circumstances. 



To attain this end it became necessary to use in all cases alike the 

 same kinds and the same quantities of grain feed in compounding the 

 daily diet of the cows on trial. The selection among the various 

 kinds of grain feed for the daily diet was, for obvious reasons, con- 

 fined to but a few ; — namely, corn meal or corn and cob meal, wheat 

 bran and gluten meal (Chicago var.) ; see VIII annual report, pages 

 12 to 15. These articles were at any time in sufficient quantity and 

 of good quality at our disposal ; they all enjoyed a fair reputation of 

 fitness for milk production. 



Having made ourselves by actual trial to a certain degree familiar 

 with the comparative feeding effect and the special economical merits 

 of the above stated coarse fodder articles under specified conditions it 

 was decided to institute a neio series of feeding experiments icith milch 

 coiDS for the special jyurpose of studyiyig the feeding effect and the gen- 

 eral economy of some of our more prominent concentrated commercial 

 feed stuffs, as old and new process linseed 7neal, cotton seed meal, and 

 gluteyi meal, when fed in equal weights in place of each other and in 

 connection icith the same lands of fine and coarse fodder articles. 



The results of one experiment, which was planned to ascertain the 

 comparative merits of old and new process linseed meal as consti- 

 tuents of the daily diet of milch cows, under otiierwise corresponding 

 circumstances has been already published in Bulletin 38, and in our 

 last annual report — VII I — pages 15 to 24. 



