48 Milk and Its Products 
A great deal has been said and written about the 
amount of food that should be given to a cow in 
milk, and various standards have been established. 
These standards are useful to guide the inexperienced 
feeder, the chief difficulty concerning them being 
that one is likely to get the idea that if the standard 
is scientifically established on a proper basis all that 
is necessary to do is to administer the standard 
amount of food to the animal, and a given result will 
be obtained. Such is not the case. Animals vary in 
the amount of food that they are able to use, and 
more particularly in the amount that they can eco- 
nomically turn into product. In respect to the dairy 
cow, three things will happen if she is fed continu- 
ously all the food that she will eat regularly without 
disarranging the digestive organs or going ‘‘off feed:’’ 
(1) She will secrete a certain amount of product 
(milk and milk fat), and at the same time gain in 
weight, or will put fat on her body. (2) She will 
make a similar amount of product, but will make no 
gain in weight, some of the food apparently going to 
waste. (3) She will use all of the food consumed 
for the production of milk, and will increase regularly 
in milk secretion as the food is increased up to the 
limit of her capacity to eat and digest. It is needless 
to say that the .cows in this latter class are the most 
valuable to their owners, and experience has deter- 
mined that they are more numerous than was formerly 
supposed. ‘ 
The ideal ration.—A liberal and economical ration 
for the best type of dairy cow is all the roughage 
