1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
the inferior cow more the production of nature, 
and, accordingly, the best and poorest cow of the 
herd, being fed with an increased supply of food, 
in every case the better cow will respond to a 
greater extent than the poorer,”—that is to say, 
the better cow is one whose structure, developed 
through long generations of improving influences, 
(determines the deposition of assimilated food to a 
greater degree in the udder products. There is a 
limit to the possible butter production of every 
■cow, and if butter be the product sought, there 
will be no gain in feeding beyond this limit. If one 
cow is capable of making two pounds of butter 
per day, and another but one pound per day, the 
one will turn into profit only half as much food as 
the other—that is, only half as much of what is in 
excess of the actual requirements of vitality. If it 
takes ten pounds of food to keep the animal in 
good condition, an additional ten pounds may all be 
(returned in the product of the good cow, while 
■only half of it would be returned in the product 
of the poor cow, the other half going to waste. 
Or, as Dr. Sturtevant states it, “ the quantity of 
milk (or butter?) yielded by an animal, is depend¬ 
ent both on her structure and nutrition. In the 
presence of sufficient food, it is determined entirely 
by structure, which is equivalent to saying, by 
inheritance.” The improvement of the domestic 
cow has increased her capacity for digesting food, 
;and her economy in digesting, and has extended to 
her glandular structure, giving it a greater power 
to throw off the products of digestion in a valuable 
form. It is believed that the effects of domestica¬ 
tion and copious feeding, has been actually to in¬ 
crease the length of the intestines, and Cuvier states 
that while the intestine of the wild boar is 9 times 
the length of his body, that of the common domes¬ 
tic boar is 131 times, and of the Siam breed 16 
times. Whether entirely from this cause or not, it 
is certainly true that the superior cow will give a 
larger proportional return from copious feeding, 
than will an inferior one ; and while it may be 
profitable to feed corn-meal and other nutritious 
food to animals of the best class, it is quite sure to 
result in a loss if fed to those of the worst class. 
The result we wish to obtain in feeding dairy ani¬ 
mals, is to obtain a valuable product in the form of 
butter and cheese, and this is an artificial result— 
to obtain it we must use artificial means, that is, 
■•an animal developed by art to an unnatural deter¬ 
mination of the products of digestion to the udder. 
Some of Dr. Sturtevant’s general conclusions are 
sis follows : “ The production of butter is largely 
'dependent on breed ; There is a structural limit to 
the butter production of each cow ; When the cow 
iis fed to this limit, increased food can not increase 
the product; The superior cow has this structural 
limit at a greater distance from ordinary feed, and 
is more ready to respond to stimuli than the infe¬ 
rior cow ; The character of the food has some influ¬ 
ence on the character of the butter, but even here 
breed influences more than food. 
Science Applied to Farming.—V. 
Br Prop. W. O. Atwater, Wesleyan University 
j Middletown, Conn. 
How Science is Saving Money and Increasing 
the Profits of Farming—Further About Feed¬ 
ing Animals. 
Many farmers consider straw and cornstalks as 
nearly worthless for fodder. Others feed them to 
their stock, and find them very valuable. On Eng¬ 
lish farms you may see straw stacked as carefully 
as hay, and sold at a guinea ($5.09 gold) per ton, 
for mixing with other food for stock. And in 
Trance and Germany straw is as staple an article 
(Of fodder as hay. I recall one case in Germany, 
•when oat straw was rated at $5.50, good clover hay 
.at $8.50, and field beets at $2.15, gold, per ton ; an¬ 
other where barley straw was valued at $4.33, and 
( clover hay at $13.00 per ton, these being the prices 
.at which those materials were actually bought and 
sold for fodder. And in those parts of this coun¬ 
try and of Europe especially, which are most noted 
jfor successful agriculture, straw and like fod¬ 
der-materials are used with profit, not only for 
store cattle and sheep, but also for horses, work¬ 
ing oxen, milch covvs, and fattening cattle. The 
theory that these foods contain so much material 
for making meat and milk and producing animal 
heat and muscular force, is well explained on sci¬ 
entific grounds, isproved by practice and is supported 
by accurate experiments. Here is a table giving the 
average values of different foods as based upon the 
amount of digestible, nutritive material they contain, 
taken from the German farmer’s diary, referred to 
in previous articles: 
Per ton. 
Meadow hay....$9.00 
Winter wheat straw. 4.32 
Summer barley straw_ 4.86 
Corn stalks. 5.40 
Clover hay.11.17! 
Rye straw. 3.781 
Per ton. 
Bean straw..$6.93 
Wheat chaff. 
Oat straw. 
Winter barley straw. 
Pea straw. 
6.39 
5.49 
4.23 
6.03 
Now why is it that so many American farmers 
put so low an estimate upon straw, and like sub¬ 
stances, and what is the secret of making them 
so valuable for fodder in Europe ? One reason 
for this difference is doubtless the fact that 
here the grain is often allowed to stand too 
long before harvesting. Early cut straw, like 
early cut hay, is much more digestible and nu¬ 
tritious than that which is allowed to stand longer. 
European farmers, who make so good use of straw, 
harvest their grain much earlier than many do with 
us. The land there, too, is much better manured 
than it is here, and grain, well supplied with barn¬ 
yard manure, guano, or other fertilizers containing 
much nitrogen, yields a large luxuriant stalk, which 
keeps green until quite mature. Well manured hay 
and clover are more nutritious than those poorly 
manured, and the same is doubtless true of straw. 
But the great reason why farmers find such foods 
as straw of little worth, is that when fed alone, they 
have really but little value. To get the full benefit 
of all the digestible material of straw, other things 
must be mixed with it. It will be well worth while 
to study this matter carefully. It was explained in 
the last article, that the value of food for making 
meat and milk, or producing heat to keep the ani¬ 
mal warm, or muscular force needed for work, 
depends upon the digested portion. In an experi¬ 
ment there described* an ox digested 7 9 / 10 lbs. from 
16 »/ 10 lbs. of good hay. At this rate the animal 
would digest from 17 lbs. of hay, and from 20 lbs. 
of straw, about the same amount of nutritive ma¬ 
terial, viz.: 8 lbs. Mark that, there was as much nu¬ 
tritive material from 20 lbs. of oat straw as from 17 
lbs. of hay. This is not mere theory, it is the testi¬ 
mony of the animals themselves, verified by the 
strictest scientific tests, not in one case alone, but 
in scores, yes hundreds of accurate feeding trials. 
But it would be' absurd to claim that 20 lbs. of 
straw is worth as much for fodder as 17 lbs. of hay. 
The quantity of the nutritive material and its value 
are two different things, as the table below explains : 
Consisting of 
Digestible Albumi- Carbo- 
materials. noids. hydrates. 
20 Its. of straw. 8 Its. .65 7.35 
17 Its. of meadow liay 8 Its. 1.37 6.63 
In other words, the meadow hay furnishes twice 
as much digestible albuminoids as the straw, and is 
more valuable fodder. Straw is, however, very 
valuable when fed so as to secure the utilization 
of the digestible material which it actually con¬ 
tains. To make it an appropriate fodder for the 
ordinary demands of our domestic animals, we 
must mix with it some other substance rich in 
nitrogen. In fact, in the experiments referred to, 
the straw was mixed with bean meal, which con¬ 
tains a large proportion of albuminoids. In this 
way the fullest utilization of both was secured. 
Let us examine this matter closely. We learned 
in the last two articles, that to feed stock economi¬ 
cally, the food must contain just such quantities of 
albuminoids and carbo-hydrates, as are adapted to 
the demands of the animals. An ox at rest in the 
stall, or a dry cow, requires a certain amount of 
food containing a certain quantity of these substan¬ 
ces. But if the ox is to be kept at work, or the 
cow is to give milk, more food will be required. 
And this extra amount must consist largely of 
albuminoids. The reason for this is very simple. 
* See Table in Article No, IV, April Agriculturist, 
Milk is produced from material in the food. All 
tlie casein (curd), and much of the fat (butter), 
arc made from the albuminoids. So food for milch 
cows must be rich in nitrogen. The same is true 
of fattening cattle, since all the lean meat, and 
much of the fat meat, comes from the nitrogenous 
material, (albuminoids), of the food. In the same 
way the muscular force is produced in great part 
from albuminoids, and the working ox must have 
food rich in nitrogen. 
The practical lesson to be learned, is, that we need 
not necessarily feed these animals a large extra quantity 
of more costly hay or clover, to get the additional albu¬ 
minoids, but that we may use straw and the like, to 
supply carbo-hydrates, and add a small quantity of 
food containing much nitrogen in a concentrated form. 
For example, a good quantity of straw, mill a few 
pounds of beans, oil-cake, etc., furnish the animal with 
just the same necessary food materials, as a large sup¬ 
ply of more costly hay. It is by caref ully studying these 
principles and applying them to practice that the great¬ 
est saving, and consequently the largest profit, is made. 
We have not space to explain the elaborate and 
costly feeding trials by which these principles have 
been learned, but we may illustrate the facts by 
some familiar examples. Young succulent grass or 
clover is a natural food for milch cows. With 
these they will give a full yield of rich milk. They 
will likewise do well on hay of prime quality 
such as that which grows on uplands and consists 
of grasses mixed with clover and other leafy un¬ 
dergrowth. But it is a matter of common expe¬ 
rience, that the best production .of milk can not be 
obtained from hay of average quality, and still less 
from that of inferior grades, such as is grown on 
marshes, or has been injured by rain. With straw 
alone, the yield of milk would be very poor indeed. 
Store cattle, however, as oxen at rest, and dry 
cows, may be kept in fair condition on even the 
poorer qualities of hay, and they will live and some¬ 
times do passably well on good straw. Now let 
us see how much of digestible material these foods 
would contain. From table 6, in the April number 
of this series, we make the following calculations, 
the figures representing general averages : 
There is contained in 
110 It 8. young grass. 
30 lbs. of prime quality hay.. 
33 Its. of average quality hay. 
Digest¬ 
ible r 
Consisting of 
47 lbs. Wheat straw. 
Sub- 
Alim- 
Carbo- 
Fat. 
stances minoids hy'ates 
ms. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
Ibs. 
. 15.5 
2.5 
12.6 
0.4 
15.6 
2.5 
12.8 
0.3 
15.8 
1.8 
13.7 
0.3 
. 15.6 
1.4 
14.0 
(i 2 
15.6 
0.5 
14.9 
0.2 
15.7 
0.4 
15.1 
0.2 
he above figures. A cow 
wiH digest from 110 lbs. of young grass about 151 
lbs. This would consist of 21 lbs. albuminoids, 
12 3 / s lbs. carbo-hydrates, and % lb. fatty matter, 
and would make a good daily ration for an ordinary 
cow of 1,000 lbs. live weight. 30 lbs. of prime 
quality hay would give about the same proportions 
of nutritive substance, and with this, too, the cow 
would give a good yield of milk. If, however, she 
has hay of only medium quality, she would have 
to eat 33 lbs. to get her 151 lbs. of digestible sub¬ 
stance, and then she would have only l 4 / 5 lb. al¬ 
buminoids, or about i as much as before, and the 
milk yield would be smaller. If she had the in¬ 
ferior hay, she would have to get all the digestible 
material from 40 lbs. to make up tflie same amount 
of 151 lbs., and would still have hut 1% lb. albu¬ 
minoids. With the straw the case would be still 
worse. The cow would be unable to digest 151 
lbs. from a daily ration of 47 lbs. It is a remark¬ 
able fact that animals do not digest all the really 
digestible material of their food, unless it has a 
certain proportion of nitrogen, and this must he 
larger than that in the straw. One chief defect of 
these poor foods, then, is lack of nitrogen. What 
is the remedy? Clearly, to supply nitrogen. 
To secure the full value of straw and like ma¬ 
terials in feeding, we must combine them with 
other substances rich in nitrogen. There are a 
great many substances which contain a larger pro¬ 
portion of albuminoids than is necessary under 
any circumstances. One of the most important of 
these is clover. There are certain other plants 
similar to clover, as lucern, esparsette, and sera- 
deUfy whjctj are largely cultivated In many places, 
