FEEDING. 47 



vetches, rye, linseed -cake, cotton -seed cake, palm-cake, and palm -nut 

 meal. 



The milk-fat becomes soft when rape-cake, oats, and wheat bran are 

 used. Wheat, barley, and rye, earth-nut and cocoa cake, and malt combs 

 have no distinct influence on the texture of milk-fat. 



When oil-cakes are used, it should be a rule that not more than 

 2J Ibs. at the very most of each kind of cake should be given per head of 

 cattle. The value of oil-cakes for milk-production may be placed in the 

 following decreasing order. The most useful is undoubtedly rape-cake, 

 then follow in the second place palm-cake and palm-nut cake, while cocoa, 

 earth-nut, and cotton-seed cakes, sunflower and hemp cakes, follow in the 

 third place. It is quite an erroneous belief to suppose that the cakes 

 mentioned in the third division exercise a generally detrimental effect on 

 the production of milk. This is by no means the case. These cakes 

 have a distinctly marked efficacy, as is also more especially the case with 

 rape-cake and palm-cake. If the milk-fat be hard and brittle, it can with 

 certainty be made soft and oily by using rape-cake, and by using palm- 

 cake, milk-fat which is soft and oily can be made to assume a firm con- 

 sistency. In winter rations, which consist largely of straw and potatoes, 

 a pound of rape-cake should never be omitted. According to the experi- 

 ments of Adolf Mayer, the melting point and also the firmness of butter 

 are dependent on the food, in so far that easily digestible carbohydrates 

 lower the melting point, while feeding with fodders poor in sugar raises it. 



It is not advisable to feed milk cows with linseed-cake. Malt combs 

 must also be used with great caution, as under certain circumstances they 

 exercise a peculiar irritating effect on the sexual organs. 



In the production of excellent and good keeping butter, the lest results may be 

 most certainly obtained by using, for the winter feeding of cows, good hay and oat 

 straw, with moderate quantities of beets or carrots, and with oats, wheat bran, 

 and rape-cake. 



Care should always be taken that the food supplied to cows is not only 

 nutritious and concentrated, but also palatable. In the rations pro- 

 vided, suitable quantities of salt should not be omitted, as well as pure 

 water of a proper temperature. The addition to the food of small 

 quantities of aromatic herbs may sometimes prove very useful. Alterations 

 in the mixture of the food rations are scarcely felt, if the composition of 

 the food, in digestible nutrients, is maintained at the same point, and if 

 the alterations be slowly and carefully effected. On the other hand, sudden 

 changes always produce distinct disturbances on the yield of milk, a point 

 which may be specially shown by analysis of the milk. Changes in food 

 do not, however, produce a distinct effect in changing the milk from day 

 to day. The effects are only clearly shown after the lapse of several days. 



