AGRICULTUEAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 79 



(2.) If no account is made of this diflFerence in nutritive 

 effect, one pound of hay proved to be equal to 4.1 pounds 

 of ensilage, of the kind fed. 



(3.) The experiment furnishes still further evidence that the 

 amount of digestible matter present may be regarded as a safe 

 basis for comparing the feeding value of foods of the same 

 class. 



General Remarks Concerning Ensilage and Other Succulent 



Foods. 



There is one question which is very commonly asked when en- 

 silage, roots and similar cattle foods are discussed from the stand- 

 point of their composition and digestibility, viz : *'Have not 

 those foods a value which the chemist's figures do not show?" 

 The real meaning of this question is that tliere is a belief on the 

 part of many that because a cattle food is green and has never 

 been dried it has a peculiar value not found in hay and grain, and 

 so ought not to be '' weighed in the balance" and judged by the 

 impartial and searching logic of mathematics which is applied to 

 foods of a different class. Scientific men, and many observing 

 men of practice, have never shown this notion much favor. It is 

 a cardinal principle in science, expressed in homely phrase, that 

 "■you cannot get something from nothing. " 



Growth, muscular activity and animal heat are effects which 

 must have equivalent causes. They are the direct products of 

 matter and energy stored in the food, and the animal cannot get 

 out of a ration more pounds of matter or units of force or heat 

 than are actually in it, nor can the farmer by any magic of com- 

 binations or treatment of foods do more than make available their 

 maximum nutritive value. 



It should always be remembered that greenness and wetness add 

 nothing to what a food can supply to the animal body of matter or 

 energy, other things being equal, but are merely conditions affect- 

 ing palaiableness. It is the digestible dry matter of a food that 

 determines its value. 



It has been demonstrated repeatedly that carefully dried grass 

 is as digestible after as before drying, and the same of fodder corn 

 dried and as ensilage. Dryness is therefore no disadvantage in 

 this respect. Such experiments as those just discussed, show, 

 moreover, that a pound of digestible matter in ensilage with its 

 accompanying seven or eight pounds of water can do only practi- 



