400 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 
(3) The economics of breeding, rearing, and finishing baby beef in rela- 
tion to two-year-old beef. 
(4) During recent years experiments more fundamental in nature have 
been undertaken, including : 
(5) Digestion studies of Canadian feeds as to the effect of plane of nutri- 
tion, association upon digestibility, age and digestibility, digestibility of 
grains as affected by roughages, and feeds as affecting meat flavour. 
Prof. R. RaE.— Systems of rearing and feeding for the production of 
young beef (11.10). 
The animals for the investigation were calves, the progeny of cross-bred 
Galloway cows mated with a pedigree white Shorthorn bull. All calves 
were weighed at birth, at weaning and at date of sale or slaughter. The 
direct costs of production for each group of animals fattened were ascer- 
tained and are expressed both as cost per head and cost per cwt. live weight. 
Five groups of calves were obtained over a period of three years. In all 
groups the calves suckled their dams for approximately six months, but 
thereafter the system adopted varied for the various groups. Spring-born 
calves were housed in the autumn and sold fat in the beginning of the 
following June at an age of 14 months. Summer-born calves were wintered 
cheaply after weaning, turned out to grass in spring, housed from September, 
and sold fat at Christmas at an average age of 18 months. One group was 
sold as forward stores at 10 months old. The last group, March-born 
calves, were wintered cheaply, but without allowing condition to be lost, 
and then turned out to grass in the spring. ‘They were sold fat off the grass 
during summer at an age of 16-17 months. 
The paper is concerned with a description of the systems of rearing and 
feeding adopted and a discussion of the results. 
Mr. H. J. Pace, M.B.E., and Dr. S. J. Watson.—Fodder conserva- 
tion and tts place on the farm (11.30). 
Hay-making is the method of conservation in general use. The losses 
involved are surprisingly high, up to 50 per cent. of the starch equivalent 
in the fresh grass being lost as a result of respiration, mechanical losses in 
the field and fermentation in the stack, and even under ideal conditions the 
loss may be 33 per cent. ‘The loss of digestible protein is of a similar order. 
Artificial drying is the ideal method of conservation, the retention of protein 
being almost complete, whilst that of starch equivalent does not fall far 
behind. ‘The losses involved in silage-making when properly carried out 
are less than is the case with hay, but with badly made silage, especially 
in the stack, they may equal or even exceed the losses in hay-making. Under 
British conditions the addition of mineral acids does not appear to give a 
marked reduction in the loss of starch equivalent, in comparison with ordinary 
or molasses silage, made with equal care, but it prevents the break-down of 
protein which is characteristic of ordinary methods of making silage and 
makes the control of the fermentation more certain. 
Artificially dried grass and well-made silage retain the carotinoid pig- 
ments of the fresh crop in a large measure. This is particularly true of 
dried grass and A.I.V. fodder. 
The inclusion of carotene-rich foods of this type in the ration of the dairy 
cow results in the production of a milk with a fat of high yellow colour 
reminiscent of that of pasture-fed cows. ‘This yellow colour is a function 
of the carotene content and is correlated with the vitamin A content of the 
milk, 
