96 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
this standard ration, .3 of a pound less digestible protein than 
Wolff’s standard ration calls for and that the total energy is 2,600 
calories larger. While in Germany there is a tendency to the 
increased use of protein, this standard ration advocates less 
protein and more of the fuel ingredients of the food. 
The German figures were suggested after a great many accu- 
rate studies of the teeding practices of the best German feeders, 
and after.a large number of feeding experiments had been con- 
ducted by trained specialists. This so-called American standard 
is practically the average of the feeding practice of 24 dairymen 
in New York and Wisconsin, and furthermore, as ascertained. 
from the more or less accurate estimates of the feeders them- 
selves as to the amounts fed, etc. The materials fed were not 
analyzed, but their composition was assumed nat: the averages 
of other analyses. 
The above is said not in any way to discredit the American 
work already accomplished, for just such preliminary work as 
this must be done before other and more accurate observations 
can be made. The facts are stated, however, to aid us in form- 
ing an estimate as to the value of the two standards. Our con- 
ditions differ materially from those of Germany, and it may be 
they are such as to make it better economy to use as wide a 
ration and with as small an amount of protein as that of the 
standard prepared by the Wisconsin Experiment Station. This, 
however, is not at present demonstrated. 
The rations here reported upon represent the actual feeding 
practices of the dairymen whose herds were examined, so far as 
could be learned by weighing the foods actually fed from day to 
day, and by determining their composition as accurately as-may 
be by means of chemical analysis. The factors used for calcu- 
lating the quantities of digestible nutrients are the chief sources 
of uncertainty entering into this study, but this uncertainty is at 
present inevitable. The average of these sixteen rations might 
be suggested as a Connecticut or a New England standard ration 
for milch cows. But when-we consider that there were such wide 
variations in feeding practice, and when we find such ranges in 
amounts of protein and in total energy as are pointed out in table 
30, On pages gt and 92, and in table 31, page 97, it would be very 
unwise to assume that the average of the rations which these sixteen 
men were feeding was the best possible ration, or anything like 
the best possible ration, for milch cows in America. Because 

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