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92 REPORT OF THE CHEMIST OF THE 
INTRODUCTORY. 
No question in the range of agricultural subjects discussed is 
awakening more interest among New York’s 350,900 farmers than 
the subject of cattle foods and their economical use in feeding 
rations for the production of milk and its products, butter and 
cheese. This being true, itis believed that the information derived 
from scientific investigation, along with the practical experience 
of New York cattle feeders, will be welcomed by our dairymen as 
one advance step towards successful dairying. 
New York State has one and a half million milch cows, prob- 
ably producing on an average less than 3,000 pounds of milk per 
year, and the average annual butter product per cow for the State 
is undoubtedly less than 130 pounds. This should not be when 
there are whole herds averaging 300 and some 400 pounds of but- 
ter per year for each cow. Animals producing these by no means 
phenomenal yields, are not confined to any particular breed and 
are often grades of our so-called native or no breed animals. 
Proper selection, systematic breeding and judicious feeding have 
produced these profitable animals and herds. What has been 
accomplished by the few should be striven for by the many and 
feed must be a prime factor in developing the ideal dairy animal 
or herd. Careful breeding and selection must hold the most 
prominent place, but breeding and selection unless accompanied 
by good care and judicious feeding will ultimately result in ~ 
failure. 2 
In the following pages are brought together tables, with proper 
explanation, showing the composition of cattle foods; the diges- 
tibility of such foods; the amount digested from various foods in 
general use and finally are given several feeding rations together 
with those rations fed by a few of the farmers in different parts of 
the State. | } 
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF CaTTLE Foops. 
Terms used. For the full explanation of terms used we must 
refer the reader to Bulletin No. 14, New Series, or the annual — 
report for 1888, page 235, where these have been fully explained. 
As guides, if the reader will remember in the expression of fodder 
analyses that albuminoids, protein and nitrogenous matter are all 
the same, and when he reads these terms think of lean meat, the 
