mere use of more or less of one or the other reputed fodder article, 

 than on the presence of suitable fodder articles, — which contain the 

 three essential groups of food constituents^ — i. e. organic nitrogenous, 

 non nitrogenons avd mineral constituents of plants, in a desirable 

 form, and in such relative proportions and quantities as have been 

 recognized to be necessary to meet efficiently the food supply of the 

 dairy-cow. Similar relations are known to exist in regard to the 

 diet best adapted in case of all kinds of animals. An econominal 

 system of stock feeding has to select amoyig the suitable fodder articles 

 those which furnish the required quality and 2>roportion of the three 

 recognized essential food constituents in a digestible form — at the lowest 

 cost. 



Actual observations in stock feedins; fully confirm the correctness 

 of the above statement, that a judicious selection from among the 

 current commercial feedstuffs for the purpose of serving in connec- 

 tion with one or more of our home-raised fodder plants as a fodder 

 ingredient of the daily diet does, as a rule, tend not only to improve 

 their food value, but also lowers in the majority of cases the net cost 

 of the feed consumed. For more details regarding the determination 

 of the intrinsic value of fodder rations I have to refer on the present 

 occasion for obvious reasons to preceding annual reports. 



The majority of commercial feed stuff's occupy in a rational system 

 of stock-feeding a similar position to our home raised fodder crops, as 

 is commoidy conceded to the Commercial fertilizer , with reference to the 

 barnyard manure for the production of farm crops; they serve for the 

 jyreparation of a complete diet under different conditions and for different 

 purposes. The individual merits of each of them becomes in the 

 same degree better appreciated, as the principles, which govern 

 animal nutrition are more generally understood, and^rid a due recog- 

 nition in our modes of compounding the daily diet for different kinds 

 as well as for different conditions of the same kind of animals. They 

 are, as a class, to-day, considered indispensable for a remunerative 

 management of every branch of animal indicstry on the farm and 

 elsewhere. 



Many of the commercial feed stuffs contain ; aside from a liberal 

 amount of phosphoric acid and potash ; an exceptionally large per- 

 centage of nitrogen. This circumstance gives them a special claim, 

 independent of their respective food value for animals. A liberal 

 addition of these feed stuffs to the daily diet of any kind of animal 

 imparts to the raanurial refuse, resulting from their use, a corres- 



