168 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
THE CALCULATION OF RATIONS: 
BY CHAS. Do WOODS. 
——_e+e—_ 
In the preceding pages there have been summarized the results 
of analyses of the principal feeding stuffs used in New England 
and the results of digestion experiments showing in how far the 
animals are able to digest the nutrients furnished them in the 
different foods. It is only a few years since this subject was first 
introduced into America. The first at all full explanation of the 
composition and the digestibility of feeding stuffs and feeding 
standards ever given on this side of the Atlantic, or indeed in the 
English language, was presented before the winter meeting of 
the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture less than twenty 
years ago.* Since that time, many of our best farmers have 
come to a pretty clear understanding of the German feeding 
standards, and have learned to calculate the amounts of nutrients 
in the rations which they feed their stock, Perhaps, on the 
whole, those of us who have adopted these ideas have taken the 
matter a little too seriously, since there is danger of assuming 
that feeding standards are absolute, and that the calculations of 
a ration are merely questions of arithmetic. 
At the present, the value of any food used in cattle-feeding is 
usually estimated by calculations based upon (z) more or less 
perfect knowledge of the chemical composition of the feeding 
stuff; that is, the percentages of protein, of fat, of carbohydrates, 
including fiber, and the ash; (4) upon the digestibility of these 
different ingredients in the class of food used, as observed in 
actual feeding experiments, and (c) upon the amounts of the 
digestible nutrients, as ascertained by feeding experiments and 
practical experience, which are needed for the proper nutrition of 
animals of different kinds, or fed for different purposes. 
In table 48, pp. 144-155, there are given the average percentage 
composition of New England feeding stuffs, and figures showing 

*Results of late European Experiments on the Feeding of Cattle, by W. O. Atwater, Report 
Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 1874, Pp. 131-180. 

