Imperial Valley press., 1909-05-22
ALFALFA MEAL MILL
 SOON TO BE BUILT
Company Organized at El Gen. trO to Supply Improved
 Stock Feed.

For some time Messrs. J. c. Black inton and W. c. Whitescarver have been formulating plans for the incof- poration of company to install an alfalfa meal mill in El Centro for the purpose of grinding alfalfa into meal for stock feed Their plans have now reached the stage where the incor- poration of the company is assured and the mill will undoubtedly be put In.
 The grinding of alfalfa into meal to be used for stock feeding purposes, has been practiced in various parts of the United States for number Of years and its increased value over uR- ground alfalfa has been demonstrated beyond doubt. For dairy food and fattening food for hogs there Is noth- ing that equals ground alfalfa and ground barley mixed.
 The local company will be incoe- porated with a capital of s50,000 and In addition to the alfalfa mill the company will install barley mill. They propose to mill alfalfa and bar ley in large quantities and will sup ply the ranchers of the valley witAc their products.
 The advantage that Imperial valley has over nearly all other sections of the country conducting a business en- terprise of this kind Is that here 1t will not be necessary to build and mantain expensive driers as the al falfa can be milled as it comes from the field.
 The following from the Denver Farm and Field shows the relativsa value of milled and unmilled alfalfa:
 ITO illustrate the economy of mill ing alfalfa and grain, we cite the re- suits of feeding two punches of sheep. 1000 sheep were fed corn and alfalfa hay in troughs and racks for 90 days. They received an average of Is alfalfa daily.
 They ate 135,O00 pounds corn at e5 cents per 100 pounds. |. $1.2S2.50.
 They had 225,000 pounds alfalfa hay at $6 per ton. ..... .$675.00
 1000 sheep, same kind, received pounds each, daily, of a half-and- half mixture of ground corn and Grant, falfa for 45 days, fed in self feeders. full fed from the start.
 They ate 67,500 pounds of corn at $1.00 per 100 pounds. ....... .$675.0e
 They ate 67,5OO pounds Granu-f falfa at $7.OO a ton. .$236.zs
 Cost of feed. $911.2b.
 A savng of $1,046.25.
 Both lots made practically the same gains and sold at same price per pound. In feeding the second lot there was saving of 5S 1-2 per cent due to milling the feed after allowing for expense of milling; besides say ing of six weeks feeding expenses. six weeks interest, and six weeks chances of accident Some of the SdNluS III lSGu Cdu DS CEouIlSu lO Lu0 use of self feeders They reduced the labor expense very much. A share of the saving can be attributed to mixing the feed and a very liberal share too. By far the greatest share Is to be credited to the mechanical condition of the feed which enabled the sheep to eat their fill in one fourth the time required by the others and to masticate their food so thor oughly that they digested 1t complete Z ly and thus got all the nutriment out of 1t.
 While they actually consumed about the same amount of feed daily, on the average, as the others, they received more nutriment from it, that excess nutrlment all going to make fat
 The others had more nutriment be- cause they had more feed, but they could not get 1t out because they could not masticate the coarse feed sufficiently to thoroughly digest 1t,