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139 
CATTLE, now TO BREED. 
partial food, containing so little albuminoids and fat that cattle would 
6tarve to death upon it if fed long enough. The muscles and nerves 
could not he nourished upon it ; and yet a good article of oat straw i3 
Worth the price named, because of the digestible heat and fat formers it 
contains. Now, put a ton of the best oat straw with a ton of the best' 
clover hay, and you have a fairly balanced food. It compares well with 
common meadow hay. The digestible albuminoids m clover 10.7, in 
straw 1.4, making the two added 12.1, and the average per cent of the 
mixture is (5.05, whilst meadow hay is only 5.04. The digestible carbo- 
hydrates in the mixture is about 39.0 to 41.0 in hay, and the fat is 1.4 
to 1.0 in meadow hay. The parallel is very close; and as the mixture 
has slightly more albuminoids and fat, it may be considered the better 
ration. These valuations of the different elements simply mean that 
each is worth the relative price named when fed in due proportion with 
the other elements. Oil-cake, for example, .is as far from being a 
balanced ration as oat straw, for it contains as much too large a propor- 
tion of albuminoids as straw does too small. It has also oil in excess. 
Like straw it must be fed with other foods. If 400 lbs. of oil-cake be 
mixed with a ton of oat straw, the mixture will make a ration equal to 
meadow hay. 
Feeding Where Corn is Cheap, 
When stock of any kind is kept and fattened in stables, on ground or 
cooked food, these tables will bo found valuable. So far as our own 
experience goes wo have found that for growing animals there is nothing 
better than equal weights of corn and oats, or corn and barley, with 
what good hay or shocked corn fodder they will eat. We have also 
found that when corn was less than 30 cents per bushel it did not pay for 
grinding even for cattle, if it could be fed in the ear or in the husk, the 
experiments being based on the toll taken, and the cost of hauling ten 
miles to mill. For sheep, horses, and hogs it will not pay for grinding 
when it is less in price than 40 cents per bushel. 
In all that great scope of country in the West known as the corn zone, 
the most economical manner we have ever found in fattening cattle was 
to feed, lirst, shock-corn; next, snapped corn; and, third, husked corn 
in the ear. In feeding the two latter, the animal weighing 1,000 pounds 
fchould have about 25 pounds of corn and 10 pounds of best ha} r . 
In feeding shock corn the animal will eat no more than it requires, and 
it should have twice a day whatever it will eat up clean, of ears. In 
feeding in this manner in the fields or dry yards with abundance of water, 
allowing hogs to run after the cattle after they have finished the ears, to 
pick up wasted corn and droppings — if the cattle are sheltered from wind 
and storm, they may be most economically fed and to very heavy weights. 
