possible, depending on the varieties of the grasses of which it was
made, and the manner of curing. But, in other sections, many will find
it necessary to use straw and other substitutes. Taking good English or
meadow hay as the standard of comparison, and calling that one, 4.79
times the weight of rye-straw, or 3.83 times the weight of oat-straw,
contains the same amount of nutritive matter; that is, it would take
4.79 times as good rye-straw to produce the same result as good meadow
hay.

In winter, the best food for cows in milk will be good sweet meadow hay,
a part of which should be cut and moistened with water--as all inferior
hay or straw should be--with an addition of root-crops, such as turnips,
carrots, parsnips, potatoes, mangold-wurtzel, with shorts, oil-cake,
Indian meal, or bean meal.

It is the opinion of most successful dairymen that the feeding of moist
food cannot be too highly recommended for cows in milk, especially to
those who desire to obtain the largest quantity. Hay cut and thoroughly
moistened becomes more succulent and nutritive, and partakes more of the
nature of green grass.

As a substitute for the oil-cake, hitherto known as an exceedingly
valuable article for feeding stock, there is probably nothing better
than cotton-seed meal. This is an article whose economic value has been
but recently made known, but which, from practical trials already made,
has proved eminently successful as food for milch cows. Chemists have
decided that its composition is not inferior to that of the best
flaxseed cake, and that in some respects its agricultural value
surpasses that of any other kind of oil-cake.

It has been remarked by chemists, in this connection, that the great
value of linseed-cake, as an adjunct to hay, for fat cattle and milch
cows, has been long recognized; and that it is undeniably traceable, in
the main, to three ingredients of the seeds of the oil-yielding plants.
The value of food depends upon the quantities of matters it contains
which may be appropriated by the animal which consumes the food Now, it
is proved that the fat of animals is derived from the starch, gum, and
sugar, and more directly and easily from the oil of the food. These four
substances, then, are fat-formers. The muscles, nerves, and tendons of
animals, the brine of their blood and the curd of their milk, are almost
identical in composition with, and strongly similar in many of their
properties to, matters found