The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1904-11-08

in the class of foods rich in heat and energy
forming elements. Then you may say, corn and
corn-fodder are the right sort of foods for our
work stock. [ reply that corn and corn-fodder
are excellent foods out of which to form part OF
the ration of horses doing hard work, but, if you
remember, I also said that corn and corn-fodder
were not rich in those materials out Of which the
body is built up. In short, the Woodworking
horse wears out" burns up" as it were, the
muscles of his body, and corn and corn-fodder,
being poor in those materials necessary to repair
these wastes, do not alone form a suitable ra-
ton for a Woodworking horse.
Let me see if l can show more clearly in an
other way what l mean by these statements.
The average horse weighing 1000 pounds, and do
ing fairly hard work, will require each twenty
four hours from ten to fifteen pounds of hay and
from twelve to fifteen pounds of grain. Now,
since corn is rich in the materials necessary to
produce heat and energy, we will suppose that
ten pounds will supply exactly the force neces-
sary to do the work required of a horse.
But corn being poor in the material necessary
to build up the wear and tear of the body, there
is not enough of this in the ten pounds, and
consequently the horse loses flesh. How do we
usually try to prevent this? By the addition, say,
of four pounds more corn. But we did not need
any more heat and energy-forming food, yet
corn is made up largely of just this sort of ma
terial. What then must become of the greater
part of this extra four pounds of corn? It is
wasted. The only portion of it that is used is the
small amount of protein it contains and which
the horse needed to repair his WORKOUT muscles.
WORSE THAN WASTED.
But if it were simply wasted, possibly we might
stand that as we do numerous other wastes, but
in this case we compel our horse to digest more
food than he needs which may so overtax his
stomach as to derange digestion, cause collie and
finally death.
What sort of foods would best supply the ma
terials to enable our horse to build up his worm
out muscles! At present, prices of food-stuffs
III most sections of North Carolina, cottonseed
meal would be the best concentrate, or grain
food. Instead of adding four pounds of corn to
the ten pounds we were already feeding, we
ought to have added two pounds of cottonseed
meal. That is, ten pounds of corn and two pounds
OF cottonseed meal will give us better results, and
the grain ration will cost us one-seventh less than
fourteen pounds of corn. This, of course, only
applies when the rough forage is cOrn-fodder or
grass hay. Or, we might supply the materials to
build up the WORKOUT muscles from any OF the
other foods [ put in the same class with cotton
seed meal, oats, wheat bran, or pea-vlne or clover
hay, but on account of the price, we cannot afford
to feed wheat bran, especially since one and one
fourth pounds of pea-vine hay are worth as
much for feeding as one pound OF wheat bran.
1t wheat bran is worth $25 per ton, this gives a
value of $40 per ton to pea-vine hay. We can
produce it for much less. Therefore, since we
have said that two pounds of cottonseed meal
would take the place of four pounds of corn IN a
ration made up of corn and corn-fodder, it is