Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1875 — Feeding of Stock. [ARTICLE]

Feeding of Stock.

Chemical investigations of feeding substances are of great interest and of very considerable practical value, but the difficulties of availing ourselves immediately of all the advantages they are capable of affording us arise from the fact that we have to deal with living orfan isms, that will often introduce a conicting variety of circumstances to modify our deductions. If the chemist tells us that under certain circumstances a certain number of materials will combine and form a certain substance, he may be perfectly true so far as the results in the laboratory go, but we have in the barn a very different set of circumstances. We have “ the living being with all its fine adjustments of nervous and muscular organization,” and we cannot predicate with the same degree of certainty the effects which any particular combination of feeding substances will have. If it were not so, if practical results would always come out as we are led to think they ought to, the whole art of feeding would be reduced to a very simple set of rules of easy application and of invariable results. But we find in practice a great variety of “physiological peculiarities” which we have to consult in our animals. They have their “ likes and dislikes,” and over them we have comparatively little control. Even the food which at one time they relish may be turned from at another with positive dislike, and the results which one kind of food produce at one time may produce the very opposite results at another. And under the same circumstances of feeding, shelter and management, the yield of milk in the same cow will be all ihe time varying, and while one cow thrives on a particular course of treatment an -ther may not. Many of these points constantly coming up in practice are well calculated to puzzle even the observant farmer. But these are others that we can more readily understand. We know that bad or stormy leather, the want of proper ventilation in the bam, the irritation of excessive heat and the attacks of insects in the field, the worrying by dogs, sudden thun-der-storms or other causes of excitement, will materially reduce the production of milk. We know, too, that it is not merely the kind of food, but tAe condition tn which it it ffiren has a powerful influence upon the product of the cow; and so we have a variety of questions upon the cooking and preparation of food, the mixing of varieties, and others of a practical character to consider. In fact, the whole subject of feeding is not without its difficulties, but fortunately many of them are of such a nature that one. rm reasonably hope to surmount them. On this point of the difficulties attending investigations into the nature and practical values of food for stock, and the circumstances which modify the milkproducing qualities of foods, some very sensible views are appended, taken from the journal of the Central Agricultural Society of Belgium, from the pen of -its

late able Secretary, M. LeDocte, and the following is a translation from the original: . ' “ Every farmer knows that the milk of dairy cows is liable to.remarkable phenomena, which occur frequently during different periods of the year. Thus, it is not uncommon to see the milk on a farm increase or diminish, according to the seasons and without any apparent cause, always affecting the milking in a similar number of cows. After that the milk is by and by of good quality, while a little later it has a mixed taste and is soon spoilt or liable to morbid changes. In one farm this substance is bitter, vitiated and t incapable of coagulating; in a neighboring farm it is sweet, post, rich in huttery substances, is caseous and agreeable to the taste. Here it is of a dull tint, gray or whitish; there it is strongly colored with blue, with red, or even with a shade of lead color; elsewhere quite the contrary is observed, and the milky secretion is seen to increase, diminish or cease entirely. What is the cause of these changes? What mean the various peculiarities which we have just noticed? “It is well known that the nature and quantity of the food given to the cattle have great influence on the qualities of the milk. If reason did not give the force of law to this observation the facts that can every day be collected in the districts of Havre, Dixmunde, Neufchateau —everywhere, in short, where animals of the bovine species receive abundant nourishment—would soon establish the justice of the principle. Starting from this line of consideration several German, English and French writers have pretended that it is possible to classify the food given to the cow and afterward to determine their value according to the quantity of milk which they cause to be produced. They have thus admitted, in a general manner, that -. “ One hundred pounds of good meadow (or English) hay well harvested are worth eighty pounds of clover hay or vetches, or fifty pounds of oil-eake. “ Two hundred pounds potatoes, 250 pounds pea straw and vetches. “ Four hundred and sixty pounds beet root with leaves on, 300 pounds barley or oat straw, 400 pounds rye or wheat straw. “Three hundred and fifty pounds Siberian cabbage, twenty-five pounds pease, beans or vetches, or fifty pounds oats. V Two hundred and fifty pounds beet root without leaves, 500 pounds green trefoil or vetches.

“ Two hundred and fifty pounds carrots. “ If these proportions are just and well established, which we will readily admit to a certain point, it is also right to say that there are certain inaccuracies which it will not be useless to mention. Thus, is it not plain that the hay and straw grown on a rich and loamy soil is much more nourishing than that grown on exhausted ground? Does this not prove that there is a great difference between fresh straw and that which has been long threshed —between the straw produced by cereals completely ripe and that of cereals cut before maturity —be tween the produce mixed with bad herbs and that which has been kept in a proper state of cleanliness? It must be remarked that each kind of food exercise ß a different action, according to the nature of the animal which consumes it; one likes straw, another prefers hay ; one fancies English hay rather than clover, while another thrives better in pasture than in the stall. The nutritive power of the food, moreover, is influenced by the state of the temperature. The nourishment acts differently, according as the weather is dry, dull, or rainy—according as the animals are left at rest or used for hard work, and according as they are well or ill treated;-it is equally unquestionable that the milk is much more abundant in one season than in another, which must necessarily be attributed to the direct influences 01 the atmosphere. “ This is not an—the disposition materially affects the milk. Give any horned animals new and particular food and you will immediately perceive a change in the flavor and color of the milk. This fact has been again recently established by an experiment made at an institution in agriculture. Food, consisting exclusively of spergula, had been given to the cattle at this establishment; and this food, to which are attributed such precious properties for milk in nearly all the other districts of Belgium, had been almost forsaken by the animals; it is needless to add, that after that the milk suffered a considerable diminution, both in quantity and quality. “ This example shows once more that the natural disposition of each animal acts for good or for evil upon the organs of digestion, and has consequently a direct influence upon the animal economy, and upon the improvement or deterioration of the milk.” — Massachusetts Ploughman.