IS© 



THE COMPOUNDING OF RATIONS FOR FARM 



STOCK. 



In the judicious blending of the home-grown and purchased 

 foods of the farm lies the chief factor in economical feeding 

 of live stock. Modern chemistry has taught us the composition 

 of the numerous food-stuffs, physiology the functions of the 

 various constituents of foods in the animal economy, and 

 numerous and careful feeding trials, conducted mainly in 

 Germany, America, and our own country, guide us as to 

 proportions and quantities required by various classes of live 

 stock. Here is a happy illustration of the application of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society's motto — " Science with Practice." 



The table on the next page contains a list of the food-stuffs 

 used in forming the rations hereinafter described, with the 

 digestible percentage of nutrients which they contain. 



The important nutrients, as was fully explained in the article 

 on " The Purchase of Feeding Stuffs" in the June number of 

 this Journal, are the albuminoids (proteids) and amides, consist- 

 ing of the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (the 

 albuminoids also contain a little phosphorus and a trace of 

 sulphur), and the fats and carbohydrates, which consist of 

 carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, but no nitrogen. Only the 

 albuminoids are capable of forming animal tissue— hair or wool, 

 skin, muscle, nerve, &c. — and hence are often spoken of as the 

 flesh formers. The carbohydrates — comprising sugar, and such 

 substances as are convertible into sugar in the process of 

 digestion, as starch and digestible woody fibre — and fats 

 are mainly responsible for keeping up the heat (the motive 

 power) of the animal machine, and when taken in excess of what 

 is required for this purpose are stored in the body as fat ; from 

 a feeder's point of view, therefore, they would be regarded as the 

 fat formers. 



