284 FEEDING AFIMALS. 



upon scanty food in summer, expecting to do the heavy 

 feeding in winter ! 



Another consideration of importance, favoring full-feed- 

 ing in summer, is the fact that succulent grass is a great 

 promoter of health, and grain-feeding, in connection with 

 grass, is not so likely to disturb the digestive functions as 

 grain-feeding with dry fodder. Nature furnishes its suc- 

 culent food for animals combined with 75 per cent, of 

 water, which has a sedative and cooling effect upon the 

 stomach and alimentary canal. Heavy grain-feeding tends 

 to produce unnatural heat and fever in the stomach, and, 

 when given with dry fodder, this tendency is not suf- 

 ficiently counteracted; but a grain ration, with scanty 

 pasture, .seems exactly to supply the deficiency and produce 

 a healthy growth. It is, therefore, entirely safe to feed a 

 small grain ration upon pasture, and, when done judiciously 

 and systematically, it will produce nearly twice the gain, 

 in live weight, as the same amount fed in cold weather. 



The reader will remember that it takes about two-thirds 

 of a full ration for the food of support, or to supply ani- 

 mal heat and waste, and the other third is the food of pro- 

 duction. This food of production gives all the profit 

 which can be realized. Up to that point, all is expendi- 

 ture without profit. This fact applies as well to summer 

 as winter-feeding. When we consider that the growth or 

 increase comes from half the amount of food required to 

 support the animal, how unwise it must be to withhold 

 this small proportion of food, and thus receive nothing for 

 the larger amount expended in keeping the animal alive. 

 This fatal error is the cause of nearly all unprofitable cat- 

 tle-feeding. 



Some of our American feeders fully understand the im- 

 portance of pushing their cattle in summer. That most 

 successful feeder, John D. Gillette, of Illinois, possessing 

 the most luxurious blue-grass pastures, still, all over his 



