PEAS FOR MILK.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6923, 1 December 1887, Page 5

PEAS FOR MILK.

Peas have been found an exceedingly effective food for producing milk, feeding test of a noted Jersey., cow, in which an average of seven pounds- of butter-daily was given for a week, sixteen pounds of pea. meal was fed per.day, j with sixteen pounds of oat meal, and twenty-four pounds of corn meal. Excellent pasture was also provided. This feed would supply an enormous excess of nutritive elements above those required for maintenance, giving four and a half times as much albuminoids, three times a<j much carbo-hydrates, and eight times as much fat as would be required for a cow in ordinary milk. No doubt, if a cow can digest sufficient food of the right kind, oil for instance, a kind of butter might be produced which would far exceed the enormous product above claimed for the Jersey cow. In such a case, a cow would act as a filter and merely separate the fatS/frora the food, and pass it through the adder. There could be no chemical change in the albuminoids or the carbo-hydrates iuto fa£>as is effected in the.ordinary feeding qfdairy.cows, for the system of the cow is unable to do so much work. The effect of the-pea meal in ; this case was probably due to its effect in enabling the cow to digest the large quantity, of corn and grass, which was consumed-. This effect of some food is of great importance. Pea meal seems to exerfc a greater effect in this direction than any other food.