ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



8 9 



makes good silage, but needs to be cut and put in the silo at just the right 

 ripening stage, while sorghum, pearl millet and soy beans make perfect 

 silage from bloom to hard grain stage. 



We have tried to learn something of the composition of plants and 

 grains used for feeding from this chart; let us turn again to the animal 

 chart and see how the animal 1 converts them into food for human con- 

 sumption. . . • 



Taking the right hand figure at the top, we notice the words "sa- 

 liva glands" in back of mouth. That secretes a fluid called saliva and is 

 used to moisten the material while being ground by the cows teeth. 

 Small balls are formed with the aid of the tongue and passed into the 

 swallow and are pushed on into the first stomach. Thus the first stage 

 of digestion (separating) and assimilating (taking into the circulation) 

 is begun. Some of the starch is turned into sugar in the mouth and enters 

 the circulation by diffusion. The first .second and third stomachs are 

 merely soak vats with the saliva as liquid, and so far the process has been 

 much the same as the glucose factory uses to get the starch out of corn. 

 But when tne recnewed materia] enters the fourth stomach, another 

 liquid is secreted, called gastric juice, that acts on the protein, and most 

 of it is digested in the stomach. Hence the importance of a high per cent 

 of protein in our roughage, as in grass, soy bean, hay and clover. As dry 

 matter does not pass through the walls of the throat, stomach and in- 

 testines, fluids must be secreted by the proper glands to put all the ma- 

 terial into the right solution before it can enter the circulation. There- 

 fore, grass with its 60 to 90 per cent of moisture, is more easily digested 

 than hay or whole grain, with only 10 to 15 per cent of moisture. The 

 former requires 3 to 5 per cent to digest it, and the latter l5""to 22 per cent. 

 But it is not entirely water in the p?ant that makes it digestible. Much 

 of the plant structure is still in solution in the growing plant cells and 

 almost ready to go to the animal circulation, while hay and grain are com- 

 posed mostly of dead cells, especially hay. The true fat is mostly digested 

 in the intestines by help of the fluids from the gall duct. Four digestive 



