Feedinij Dairy Cattle 



is worth no more than a pound of digestible carbohydrates 

 and onh- one half as valual:)le as a pound of digestible fat. 



2. As a supplement to home grown feeds, roughage and 

 grain, there is usually the question of an added protein sup- 

 ply. Under this condition the digestible crude protein has a 

 value greater than its value simply as one of the total diges- 

 tible nutrients. It is customary when one is buying a feed 

 for the protein in it to compute the cost per pound of protein 

 just as if other nutrients were valueless, and the purchase 

 were made for the protein alone. In the example of the 

 gluten feed and cottonseed meal at $66.00 per ton cited above 

 the protein in the cottonseed meal would cost $66.00 per ton 

 divided by 632 or about 10 cents per pound and the digestible 

 protein in the gluten feed would cost $66.00 divided by 432 or 

 about 15 cents per pound. Therefore, cottonseed meal is a 

 cheaper source of protein than gluten feed if the thing sought 

 is the protein alone. Both the cost of digestible nutrients 

 and the cost of digestible protein must be considered how- 

 ever because rarely is a feed purchased for the digestible 

 protein alone. 



3. New ideas are coming up every day in regard to the 

 value of feeds and it is no longer safe to look at a feed simply 

 as a source of nutrients and protein. Feeds must be studied 

 also as a source of different kinds of protein and as a source 

 also of some illy defined substances about which we know 

 but little but which are of great importance in the growth 

 and well being of animals. 



So much for an introduction. We will study the feeds 

 available by plants, that is, we will take up one plant at a time 

 and see what we get from it, how we get it and relatively 

 what it is worth compared with other feeds. 



THE CORN PLANT AND THE FEEDS IT FURNISHES 



We naturally turn to the corn plant first for two reasons. 

 First, one only has to watch the market for a short time to 

 find the king of feeds. It has been said that cotton is king 

 in the United States but I think that corn is the real king in 

 this country from many standpoints, but particularly from a 

 nutrition standpoint, both human and animal. When the 

 supply of corn is big and it is running evenly, feeds are more 

 reasonable in price except perhaps the high protein feeds. 

 The demands for these to suppement the corn oftentimes 

 drives them up above their normal as a source of total 

 digestible nutrients because of their high value as sources 



Page One Hundred Eight 



