CHAPTER XVI 

 FEED FOR THE COW 



The cow a milk-making machine. The cow 

 may be compared to a machine. "When we stop 

 to consider that the real purpose of the cow 

 from the dairyman's standpoint is to produce 

 milk, in the same way that the purpose of a 

 machine is to produce some given article, we 

 are justified in making the comparison. We 

 give the cow a certain quantity of food and from 

 this we expect her to maintain herself and at 

 the same time convert a good share of the 

 food into milk. Good dairymen realize that the 

 profit comes from the excess of food that she 

 consumes over and above that required for her 

 bodily maintenance. 



A maintenance ration necessary. Investigators 

 have found that the daily maintenance ration of 

 a cow weighing about 1,000 pounds is : .7 pounds 

 digestible protein, 8.0 pounds digestible carbo- 

 hydrates, and 0.1 pound ether extract. 



Granting that the above is true, we can easily 

 see that a^dairyman, in order to get a supply 

 of milk from his herd, must give each cow more 



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