184 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I908. 



Merritt's Jersey Cozv feed. E. Merritt & Sons of Houlton 

 are local millers and grind native grains to which is added cot- 

 tonseed meal in order to make a feed for milch cows. They 

 use native grains together with the pinched wheat, oats, barley 

 and weed seeds that came from the cleaning of wheat in their 

 flour mill. They grind this with western corn and add to 

 the feed, ground second quality buckwheat, without hulls. To 

 this grain mixture they add a third by weight of good grade 

 cottonseed meal. It will be noted therefore that this feed, if 

 thoroughly mixed, is made up of three- fourths mixed grains and 

 mill screenings and one-fourth cottonseed meal. Four years 

 ago they sent a sample to the Station and based upon that analy- 

 sis they claimed for it 28 per cent protein and 6 per cent fat. 

 The analysis as reported in bulletin 102 of this Station showed 

 it to carry 29.13 per cent protein and 6.65 per cent fat. These 

 goods were not sold in bags but were sold in bulk and put into 

 the customers' bags and for this reason they had never been 

 sampled officially. In the winter of 1907-8 a sample of this feed 

 was sent in by a correspondent, analyzed as No. 2793 and found 

 to carry only 17.13 per cent protein. These goods were not sold 

 under a guaranty but on request of the consumer, E. Merritt & 

 Sons sent one of their advertising tags which claimed 28 per 

 cent protein for the goods. This particular sample carried about 

 10 per cent weed seeds including mustard, pigweed, persicaria, 

 lady's thumb, corn cockle, horsemint, flax, wild buckwheat and 

 green foxtail. The seeds were not finely ground and when sub- 

 jected to a germination test those that germinated were chiefly 

 mustard and at the rate of about 36,000 plants per 100 pounds. 

 It will be noted from the table of weed seeds found in feeds 

 given on page 191 that all of these goods are heavily loaded 

 with weed seeds, many of which will germinate. Naturally this 

 led to correspondence with the makers and a sample was sent 

 to us from the mill which was found to carry 21.38 per cent 

 protein. They also submitted a sample of the grain mixture 

 before it had been reinforced by cottonseed meal and it was 

 found to carry 12.32 per cent protein. 



The manufacturers seem to have placed this guaranty upon 

 their goods in good faith and state "The demand for this feed 

 is largely local from persons who have used it for years and 

 would not care for analysis." They made affidavit that they 



