Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-08-06
MOST POPULAR FOOD STUFF FOR
CATTLE.
Pointers That Are of Vital Interest to the
Up-to date Farmer. Money in Dairying.

What has cotton to do with dairy
ing? Cotton seed products have be-
come the most popular food stuff for
cattle, because of the low price and
the most excellent results. They are
the natural cattle feed for the cotton
region, on account of saving in freight
and the easy and convenient access
Strange to say. the value of these pro-
native home. 1t remained for German
scientists to point out their great
value. German agriculturists are al
ways standing ready to make use OF
the discoveries Of science, and so they
imported vast quantities of cotton seed
meal from this country and used 1T for
cattle feed i'm their dairies years before
our own people woke up to the great
possibilities in cotton seed meal as a
feed stuff. But it is now very well
known that cotton seed meal, in con-
nection with cotton seed hulls, make
the most valuable cattle foods that are
the Southern Cotton Oil company OF
the Caroinas and Georgia, at any Of
their mills or at their headquarters at
Columbia, S. c., Savannah, Ca, At
lanta, Ga, or Raleigh, N. c.
There is one fact In connection with
cattle feeding on cotton seed products
that is not generally given the prom
inence that it's Importance demands
This is the value of the manure.
Most exhaustive experiments have
been made, both in this country and in
Europe, with view to finding the
relation between the feed and the re-
sulting eXcrement from cattle.
most important and far-rcaching con.
clusion has been reached. and it is
one which does not admit of any
doubt. This is that practically all of
the nitrogen that is fed to cattle re-
appears in the excrement: about half
in the solid and half in the liquid.
Nitrogen is the most expensive ingre-
dient in all food stuffs, and in all fer
tilizers. Hence this discovery is q
most important one, leading to the
astounding fact that the present COM
mercial value of cotton seed meal as
feed stuff is but half it's real value
when properly understood. 1t means
that the full value Of the nitrogen in
the meal may be utilized in feeding.
and then, If sufficient care be taken to
save solid and liquid manure the whole
of the nitrogen may be collected and
used again as manure. There Is
further value in this, i'm that the form
Of the nitrogen in this manure, taken
with the other elements, chemical and
mechanical, makes the manure a bet
ter fertilizer than the original meal.
The general statement that practi-
cally all of the nitrogen fed to cattle
reappears in the eXcrement might lead
| to the conclusion (Which would be
easily self contradictory that nitrogen
feeds are of no value to cattle, and that
1t is in no way asSimilated or made use
more firmly established than that nitro
genous feeds are most important, in
producing both beef and butter; but 1t
Is not yet well understood how the an
imal uses the nitrogen and then ex-
cretes it. 1t may be that the nitrogen
from the air Is utilized. or 1t may be
that through some transformation in
the system the nitrogen does its work,
and is then rejected.
There is a perfect analogy in the use
Of nitrogen in making sulphuric acid.
1t is necessary to supply a certain
amount of nitrogen to make the process
operative and yet all OF this nitrogen is
either recovered or lost, mono Of II
actually being retained in the sulphuric
acid.
The cotton plant requires large
amount of nitrogen, and this may be
supplied with the manure from dairy
cattle, which themselves feed on cotton
products, and in the interim, turn out
large amounts of valuable milk cream
and butter Then dairying on The cot
ton farm becomes a logical occupe tion.
There are now many cotton seed oil
mills of the Southern Cotton Oh Co. 80
widely scattered that 1t Is easy for any
cotton farmer to trade his cotton seed
for meal and hulls, and thus provide
himself with valuable feed stuffs for
dairy or beef cattle, and incidentally
procure the very best fertilizer that is
known-the manure from cattle main
tanned on nitrogenous feeds.
Aside from all considerations OF ma
nurial value, the relative feed value OF
cotton seed meal and hulls Is shown
below, in connection with relative value
of other feed stuffs in the following ey
tract from table in the book "CottC
and Cotton or by D. A. Tompkns.