The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-03-25
Food Equivalents.

matter of the values OF different kinds of
food for stock. Such a knowledge will
enable the farmer to feed his stock with
greater economy and at the same time
Keep them in better condition. The
practice of farmers in feeding stock
varies in different localities, and even in
the same locality. One farmer will win
ter his cattle entirely on hay, and often,
before spring. they will become so
constipated that their excrement is
voided in hard balls; they fall off greatly
in flesh, and spring finds them in bad
condition. / remember the time when
it was a common practice to winter cat
tie at straw stack, with no food except
the straw to which they helped them
selves. Cattle confined for long time
TO a single article of diet which, like this,
is deficient both in flesh formers and fat
and heat producers, were generally in a
terrible condition to endure the March
winds. Many of them died, and many
more were so run down that it took all
the best part of the season to get them
back to as good condition as they were
in the previous fall. In the great corn
growing States many farmers run to the
other extreme, and feed too lavishly of
corn, which contains an excess of heat
and fat producing elements. nave
known farmers to feed horse thirty
large ears of corn day-equal to twelve
or fifteen pounds of shelled corn, all
through the winter when the teams were
not working, and often they were not
taken out of the stable for week, except
to water.
have seen men keep hogs shut up in
close pen or muddy yard, obliged to
sleep on dusty floor, and for months
not feed mouthful of anything except
corn. 1t is little wonder that with such
management our western horses break
down early, or die of collie, or that
cholera sweeps our herds of swine out
of existence. Common sense teaches
that the more comfortable and contented
our stock is kept, the better they will
thrive, and generally the more profit
able they will be to us. An animal can
not be comfortable when suffering with
hunger, or when gorged and clogged by
too great quantity of rich food. The
animal wintered on straw or poor
quality of hay will suffer both with
hunger and cold, for there is not enough
fat in the food to maintain vital heat, or
enough of the flesh formers to replace
the waste. The animal that is fed too
much corn-meal loses appetite and all
the digestive and assimilative organs be-
come deranged. The knowledge which
the farmer should have, and which
science can help him to gain, will enable
him to so combine the different articles
of food as to make the proportions of
flesh and fat formers what they should
be. Millions of acres of cornstalks, in
our western States, are left in the fields
and fed off after the rains and winds
have bleached them until they are nearly
worthless, and the land is damaged by
tramping more than all the food is
worth. Straw stacks, by the thousand,
are left to rot All this material can be
fed to stock profitably, and will be rel
ished by them if combined with some of
the richer foods.
For example, if good hay is worth S12
ton, and straw is only valued at 81,
we may be able to make a much better
ration for our cattle-as well as cheaper
by feeding 500 pounds of straw COM
bined with 400 pounds of corn meal and
100 pounds of linseed meal. If the corn
meal costs 81 per 100 pounds, and the
linseed meal $1.50, the ton would cost
$3.50 against S12 for hay. We need a
systematic series of experiments care
fully carried out, to enable farmers to
know what the feeding value of various
substances is. There are many farmers
who regard bran as almost worthless.
Many years practical experience in feed
ing it leads me to value it higher than
corn meal, possibly not entirely on ac-
count of the actual nutriment contained
in it, but because when fed with corn
meal it, like grass, keeps the bowels
open, prevents Indigestion, and enables
the animal to maintain healthy condi-
ton and assimilate its food so much bet
ter than it can without it. l think that
we should first make ourselves acquaint-
ed with the constituents of animal foods,
getting clearly before us the proportions
of flesh and fat farmers in each, and we
should then carry out some experiments
to see how theory and practice agree.
There are few facts about animal foods
which farmers should remember: AS,
for example, that the time of cutting and
manner of curing of hay, straw and fod-
der will greatly affect their value; that
the albuminoids are far more costly than
the Carbohydrates, and that stock will do
better on food in which the latter are
deficient, than if the former are.
have examined number of tables
which give analyses of different articles
of animal food, and select from them the
following as fair average: In these
tables the albuminoids are valued at
about 81. 80, Carbohydrates at 80 cents
and fat at S4.35 per 100 pounds. An
the articles in these tables are valued at
higher price than we should give them
in our western States, but the relative
values are what we want and they are
right. In the following table the d.
gestible amount of each of the elements
is given. The first column represents
the number of pounds of each in a ton,
and the last the money value at the
prices given above. In the carbhydrates
is included the digestible crude fibre. In
the hay, straw and fodder, a good medi-
UNI quality is represented. the average
of five analyses, including the best and
poorest samples: '''' s.. -