It is safe to always feed cotton seed meal, bran, or linseed cake
with corn fodder, or fodder corn, or ensilage. And it will always be
found to work well if corn meal is fed with clover hay. Corn ensilage
with clover hay will constitute a proper feed. To avoid waste, and
secure the best results, we must learn to balance the nitrogenous and
carbonaceous foods. Our greatest difficulty in feeding, as in manuring
the soil, is to secure enough of the nitrogenous elements. These are
what we have mainly to look out for, the carbonaceous foods usually
being over abundant.
Not only must we proportion the elements of food properly, but we must
prepare the food so that it will be in a proper condition. It may
contain all the elements, but in consequence of being in a bad or wrong
condition, the animal cannot digest it. There is plenty of carbon in
coal, but who would expect the animal stomach to digest it? So there is
nitrogen in saltpeter and gun-cotton, but they are not in a suitable
condition or form for digestion, and hence have no food value. Most
raw vegetables are indigestible in the human stomach, but cook them,
and thus put them in a proper condition, and they become nutritious
foods.
There are few, if any, perfect foods. Every food needs to be
supplemented with something else. Hence it is that both men and animals
want variety. Summer pasture, composed of mixed grasses, makes the
best food for all kinds of stock. Meadow hay, cut at the right time
and properly cured--provided there is a mixture of grasses--makes a
proper food for winter; but even this needs to be accompanied by roots,
ensilage or something of a juicy nature, as a relish, if for nothing
else, and as an aid to digestion.
In a state of nature, roaming free, animals select and balance their
rations according to the cravings of appetite. But when domesticated,
they have no such freedom of choice, except perhaps in a few of the
summer months. In winter, they must take what is given to them. It is
our duty, therefore, to give their food a proper balance of elements as
far as possible; and in thus conforming to the laws of nature, we shall
find both the greatest economy and the greatest profit.