The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-01-31

For about ten years we have tried
thousands of careful experiments in
feeding animals, in Analysing the food
consumed and the excrements there
from in order to determine the CO.
efficients of digestibility of each class
of feeding stuffs, so as to be able to
base our feeding no longer upon the
coarse constituents, as formerly, but
solely upon the digestibe part of il,
which evidently is alone important.
This is what has been also done by V.
Garcia in France, and by E. Wolff in
Germany, in their methods Of feeding
lately published. 1t will be too tedious
to study in detail all these scientific
plans of feeding. l shall merely say
that none of them, to my knowledge,
has escaped the following objections:
| (D From the very start, these factors
of feeding, which aim to point out the
necessary feeding elements for 1000
kilos 1920 pounds] of net weight in
the animal, rest upon false founda-
ton, because they fail to take sufficient
account of the very large difference in
the call for nourishment which exists
between the small and the large breeds,
even when different factors are given
for the different ages of growing beasts.
(2) Then, the factors of the proposed
rations-though they are really deduced
from known practical rations which are
good and effective-have no exactness,
nor any guarantee of economy; for they
show nothing except that these prac-
ton, and that we could not reduce any
of their alimentary principles without
at the same time diminishing the pro-
ducts. 1t has in fact been often proved
that equally good and productive rations
will show very great difference in
their relative proportions of digestible
elements; and experience also proves
that from cows, for instance, we can
get the same yield of milk with much
less protein (but more fat than is indi-
Gated by E. Wolff after studying the
common way of feeding; and also that
for fattening cattle we can with ad
vantage somewhat increase the assim-
liable elements and reduce considerably
the starchy ones. (3) Finally; these
theoretic methods of feeding generally
take no account of the intensity of
production, nor do they allow the es-
Establishment of any precise relation be-
tween the food consumed and the
products obtained,-a most important
relation for the science of rural econ
omy, and for the practical farmer who
wishes to perfect his art, and to utilize
terials.
We cannot with sufficient exactness
establish the best ration, from the
economic point of view, without dis
tinguishing in the ration the elements
necessary for keeping up the animal
mechanism from those necessary for
those products which the animal gives
us; because the intensity of production
affects not only the quantity of the
needed ration, but still more the rel
alive proportions of the food elements
of which it is made up. A TO rage ra-
ton that would be excellent for COW
giving seven to eight quarts a day
might be very defective for the same
COW if she gave fifteen to sixteen
quarts; for the nutritive relation, or
relative proportion, between the diges-
tible alimentary principles are by no
means the same for the production of
milk as for the proper nourishment of
the body. For horses, for example,
experts have long ago learned by expe-
rience the truth of this principle, and no
driver forgets that ration of twenty
two pounds of hay and eleven pounds
of oats, very suitable for horse of
l 100 pounds, doing only light farm
work, would be quite insufficient, even
when the total quantity was increased,
for the same horse doing heavy team
ing. II would be necessary in such a
case to at least double the quantity of
oats. The composition as we'll as the
quantity of the ration necessary for an
animal depends greatly upon the in
tensity, as well as the character, of its
production; and any system of feeding
which takes into account merely the
nature of the products, and ignores the
quantity, in regulating the feed, is very
incomplete and defective.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these i'm,
PROJECTIONS, as in fact we must deduce
our rules of feeding mainly from wha
experience shows to be good practice,
30 far as results are concerned, these
last published methods should always
have large practical value; and it is
for that l cite in particular, in the fol-
lowing table, the factors of feeding