Manure Values. MILK V. MEAT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1923, 1 November 1884, Page 6

Manure Values. MILK Y. MEAT.

BY SIR J. B. LAWES, BART, LL.D., P.R.S. A number of questions on subjects connected with agriculture are constantly coming before me, of which many are only interesting to the sender ; but there are others that have a more general interest. In the latter class may be named questions relating to the difference in the value of the manure from stock fed for dairy purposes and the manure from stock fattened for the butcher. I have answered several letters lately upon this latter subject, and, as questions of this description are far more easily put than answered, I think it will be advisable to state a case, and then give the answer, which may be read by others who are interested in the subject as well as the individual who put the question. I received the other day a letter to the following effect : — " Please will you let mo know the difference of the rnanisre from one ton of linseed cake, passing through a bullock or a cow?" My correspondent then goeß on to say that he sendß milk to London for sale. There can be no doubt regarding'the object of this question, which is evidently to find out whether the production of milk is moro exhausting than the production of meat ; and whether the general opinion on the subject — that the production of milk is more exhausting — iB correct. My correspondent wants this opinion to be placed before him, not in a scientific formula, but in the more easily understood form of £ s. d. I will try and work out the answer required from my own farm resultß. I have a dairy of about 30 cows. For the last two months, each cow has consumed daily a little over 100 lbs. of food, consisting of cake, bran, hay, and straw-chaff, and mangels. The dry weight of this food is 28 lbs., while the average daily product of milk is a little over 28 lbs ; but if we call it 28 lbs., it will very much facilitate our calculation, as we shall thus have 1 lb. of dry food prsducing 1 lb. of milk. Milk contains about 13 per cent, ofvdiy substance ; 1000 lbs. of dry food will therefore produce 130 lbs. of dry milk. If I had fed oxen with the same food, I should have expected that the 1000 lbs. would have produced about 8o lbs. of increase in live weight, containing G3 lbs. of dry matter. The 130 lbs. of dry milk will contain about 7 lbs. of nitro gen ; the 63 lbs. of dry animal will contain hardly 1 per cent. The 1000 lbs. of dry food will contain about 20 lbs. of nitrogen, there fore the milk will abstract 7 lbs., or about 3.3 per cent., while the meat will take only 5 per cent. In dealing with these figures it appears to be the fairest way to show the loss of manure generally upon the whole of the food equally. If I were merely estimating the meat oi milk produced by the foods, such a proceeding would be evidently unfair ; or if I were esti matiDg the separate manure value of the different foods, a d)fferent course would have to be pursued ; but here we have to deal with a certain number of ingredients contained in a mixed diet — part home-grown, part purchased—and it is required to know what amount of these ingredients is abstracted by a dairy cow as compared with the amount abstracted by a fattening ox. If we assume the manure value of one ton of linseed cake to be GOB. before feeding, it would be worth 575. if fed by oxen, as against 88s. if fed by dairy cows ; these figuies representing the value of the ingredients removed in the milk and meat, though making no allowance for the waste or loss of manure. If, instead of charging the loss of the manure upon the whole of the food consumed, ■we charge it upcn the cake alone, it will require all the nitrogen in 41bs. of cake to furnish the quantity contained m two gallons of milk. Under these circumstances, a cow receiving a \ cwt. of linseed cake per week, and yielding 14 gallons of milk, would reduce the manure value of a ton of linseed cake to a very few shillings. It is quite evident, therefore, that the popular idea of dairy farming taking much moie out of the land than grazing is fully borne out by the figures given, and unless the loss is compensated by imports in the form of foods or manures, pasture land will soon deteriorate.

M. Pujl Bert, the eminent French biologist, has been investigating the origin of sugar in milk. Two theories exist for explaining this phenomenon, one of which supposes it is formed in the gland itself from lactogenic or milk-forming matter ; the other supposes that it comes from thp blood, and is merely stored in the breabts of animals. M. Bert has experimented with cows and she-goats, and found beyond a doubt that sugar of milk is introduced by excretion in the breasts from sugar formed in excess by the animal. The sugar is apparently first formed in the liver, but whether it appears in the form of lactose of glycose, afterwards transformed into lactose in the breasts, is yet a moot point which M. Bert has not investigated.

The number of Canadian cattle exported to Gieat Britain in 1883 was 55,625 head, and 114,352 sheep. This branch of trade is now one of the leading industries of the Dominion, and, with the partial failure of the wheat crop last harvest, was the mainstay of the agricultural community. The imports of cattle for breeding purposes are Btcadily in creasiDg annually, and to the improved class of stock attributable to this may be traced the increase of the trade in live stock. — Live Stock Journal.