236 Feeds and Feeding. 



So much for theory: — what are the results of experiment and 

 experience T 



370. Steaming roughage for cattle. — Fifty years ago there 

 could be found in this country a number of establishments, more 

 or less elaborate and expensive, designed for the purpose of 

 steaming or boiling forage for cattle. The work was usually 

 undertaken by men of means, and was sometimes carried out 

 with much detail and often at considerable expense. It is signif- 

 icant that none of these practices was long maintained. 



Experiments with feeding steamed hay to oxen, made at Pop- 

 elsdor^ ' showed very decisively that steaming rendered the com- 

 ponents of hay less digestible; especially was this true of the 

 protein. When the hay was fed dry, 46 per cent, of the protein 

 was digested, while only 30 per cent, was digested from the 

 steamed hay. (664) 



We may summarize the results of cooking coarse forage for 

 cattle by quoting the reply to an inquirer given many years ago 

 by the editor of an agricultural joumal:^ "Tlie advantages are 

 very slight and not worth the trouble of either building the fire, 

 cutting the wood or erecting the apparatus, to say nothing of all 

 these combined, with danger and insurance added." 



371. Cooking feed for swine. — While the practice of steaming 

 roughage for cattle has been universally abandoned wherever 

 undertaken, much is still said concerning the advantages of cook- 

 ing feed for swine. This subject has been carefuUy investigated 

 at our Stations with practically concordant results, so that we are 

 not without definite help on an important topic 



Elsewhere (836) is given a summary of numerous trials with 

 cooked and uncooked feed for swine conducted at the Experiment 

 Stations of this country with the surprising result of an average 

 loss of 6 per cent, in the value of the feed because of cooking. 

 The reader wiU be interested in the opinions of the various ex- 

 perimenters who conducted the feeding trials. 



Shelton, » concluding an account of a feeding trial where cooked 



> Homberger, Landw. Jahrb. VIII, 933; see Armsby, MauuAl of Cat^ 

 tie Feeding, p. 266. 

 « Country Gentleman, 1861, p. 112. 

 * Rept. Prof. Agr., Kan. Agr. Col., 1885. 



