The knowledge which we have concerning the requirements 

 of various animals, under varying circumstances, comes largely 

 from German scientists, who have devoted much time and 

 monoy to agricultural investigations, their methods of working 

 out the results that we have obtained may be best explained by 

 giving the actual records. The hrst step is to determine the 

 amount of food actually required to keep a given animal, with- 

 out gain or loss, this is called a " maintenance ration." From 

 " Armsby's Manual of Cattle Feeding," I select an experiment 

 made by Henneberg and Stohmann. Oxen weighing one thou- 

 sand pounds were fed on the following rations daily : 



All of these, except the first, kept the annimals in good 

 health, of a constant live weight, or nearly so. Let us take the 

 third experiment and study it. We have a ration that will keep 

 a one thousand pound ox without loss. This question comes 

 up : What amount of albuminoids, carbo-dydrates, and fat, does 

 this furnish ? The experimenters analysed the foods -and deter- 

 mined the digestibility of each constituent. The following ta- 

 ble shows the digestible matter per one hundred pounds of each 

 article used in the test : 



100 lbs. of Albuminoids. Carbo-hydrates. Fat. 



Clover contains, 6.00 39.5 i.o 



Oat straw contains, .87 45.5 0.30 



*Linseed contains, 27.00 28.5 9.00 



With this table we can compute the exact amount of digest- 

 ible matter that the ox received in that ration. This is given 

 below : 



Total digestible matter daily, 



*This rape cake is of about the came composition as the linseed found 

 in the markets of the United States. 



14 



