38 "MAINE STATE COLLEGE 



believed in that two particulars it is a distinct improvement upon simi- 

 lar experiments previously conducted: (1) The feeding was begun 

 with the animals as calves and continued from seventeen to twenty- 

 seven months or until the steers had attained a size from 870 to 

 1300 pounds. (2) The bodies of the animals, excepting the skins, 

 were entirely submitted to chemical analysis. 



Plan of the Expekiment. 



Character of the steers. Four steer calves were purchased in the 

 summer of 1893 of K. & C. D. Waugh, Starks, Me., and they reached 

 the station on June 7th. Their breeding is described in the following- 

 extract from a letter from the Messrs. Waugh. "The men that raised 

 the calves have kept, thoroughbred Durham bulls for over forty 

 years, and they are high grades." 



The calves were therefore not full blooded animals but were 

 high Shorthorn grades, and were quite uniform in quality. One pair 

 was two or more months older than the other two, and in dividing 

 the animals into two lots one older and one younger animal were 

 assigned to each lot. At the time when the experimental feeding 

 began the age of the calves ranged from five to seven months. 



The rations. The steers were fed alike until the last week of August, 

 1893, at which time the feeding of the experimental rations begun. 

 On September 1st, the animals were weighed for the first time and 

 from that date a record of the daily rations and weekly changes 

 in live weight was kept until the end of the experiment 



The grain rations consisted of mixed grains with both lots. At first 

 Steers 1 and 2 were fed a mixture consisting of one part linseed meal 

 one part corn meal and one part wheat bran, by weight. This mixture 

 was continued until January 22, 1894, when it was changed to one 

 consisting of two parts linseed meal, one part corn meal and one 

 part wheat bran, which was continued throughout the remainder 

 of the experiment. Steers 3 and 4 were fed during the entire ex- 

 periment on a grain mixture consisting of two parts corn meal and 

 one part wheat bran, by weight. 



The coarse food consisted entirely of hay, except in the winter 

 1S93-4 when corn fodder and corn silage Avere also fed. At no time 

 was the daily ration what would be considered heavy feeding. The 

 object of the experiment was to discover the specific effect of quite 

 different rations rather than to produce the largest possible animals 

 within a given time, and to this end the rations were restricted to a 

 moderate quantity, on the ground that less vicissitudes would attend 

 the experiment and that any thing approaching an excess of food 

 would tend to obscure the influence of a more or less favorable com- 

 bination of nutrients. 



At the beginning, the daily ration was five pounds of hay or its 

 equivalent and one pound of mixed grain, and the largest ration 



