FEEDING. 



165 



table used milk depends, rather than the amount of fat in it, although the fat is 

 the most important nutritive element in it. 



It is a disputed question if the kind of food used has any relative effect 

 upon the quality of the milk. Scientific investigators differ in respect to it, 

 and some very strangely insist upon the negative in regard to it, while their 

 own experiments prove positively the affirmative. This, however, only shows 

 that in some experiments the effort is to sustain previously formed opinions 

 taken up at second hand, rather than to be guided by the results of one's own 

 work. The very careful and accomplished Dr. Vcelcker concluded from his 

 own experiments that " cows should be differently fed according to the pur- 

 pose for which the milk is used, whether for cheese or butter product," and 

 this being our own belief, formed and strengthened by several years of careful 

 and accurate experimental feeding, we shall be guided by this view in the 

 remarks here made. 



Foods, as is well known, are made up of three nutritive elements, viz.: 

 carbo-hydrates, as starch, sugar, gum and digestible cellulose ; albuminoids or 

 protein, as albumen, gluten and vegetable fibrine ; and fatty matters, which 

 consist of fat, oil and some organic acids, as butyric and others, which are 

 injurious rather than helpful as regards the quality of the milk, giving to it an 

 odor which is not desirable, and for some purposes is wholly destructive to its 

 usefulness, as, for instance, the condensing of the milk. It is known that the&e 

 foods have certain results in the alimentation of the cow, that the carbo- 

 hydrates go to support the vital heat, the albuminoids form flesh, and to some 

 extent are convertible into heat and fat, and that the fats are assimilated 

 directly and go to support heat or are deposited in the tissues. When the cow 

 is abundantly supplied with foods rich in these substances the surplus goes to 

 produce milk ; the albuminoids furnish material for the caseine and also for fat ; 

 the carbo-hydrates furnish the milk, sugar and some of the fat, and the fat 

 goes directly to provide the fat. These products vary in quantity according 

 to the natural ability of the cow to transform them, but in the best cows the 

 product bears some ratio to the materials furnished. Hence it is important to 

 understand the precise nature of the foods available and to make a choice of 

 the best of them. In the following list are mentioned the most common and 

 available food substances for feeding cows, with their constituents and the 

 comparative value both for theoretical feeding and for money: 



This table should be carefully studied and kept for reference. One should 

 always know his business and have the points of it " at his fingers' ends," so to 



