Succulent Food for Cattle.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 19

Succulent Food for Cattle.

The only conclusion which we can draw from the experience of feeding miloh cows with succulent food and silage, said Professor Lloyd in his paper at the Dairy Conference, is, that the water which exists naturally in a vegetable tissue has a special effect upon the animal, and cannot he adequately replaced by water drunk in the usual way. In my opinion, it seems that in vegetable matter there is an intimate union between this water and the chemical constituents of the vegetable. What this union or chemical combination is cannot as yet be said. - In mineral substances we know that water can exist in intimate chemical union entirely different from water whioh is merely mixed with that substance, and we may argue by analogy that there may be a similar two-fold condition of water in vegetable substances. Whether this be so or not, the fact remains that a vegetable as grown acts very differently as food to that vegetable first dried and subsequently mixed with an amount of water equal to that which had been taken away. After a careful consideration of the feeding experiments hitherto conducted, it seems to me that the succulent foods which have contained the greatest proportion of water have proved the most valuable for dairy cattle, and this is apparently the chief cause why, in the experiments of Mr. I. N. Edwards, and subsequently of Sir Johu Lawes and Dr. Gilbert, mangels have proved superior to silage. In dry matter the tsvo diets were closely similiar, bat the mangels contained eighty poundß of succulent water, the Bilage only forty pounds : —English paper.