We can get at these things in a general way, however, by experience. Feeding has long been known as an art. Some day it may be entirely a science. But that can not be said at the present time. We must vary the feeds used and learn by experience and observation what gets the best results. A chemical analysis of tender grass will not show it to contain more digestive nutrients than the old tough grass that the cows will hardly eat, but it requires much less energy to convert it into milk. One year I listed some squaw corn about the tenth of July in a wheat stubble. By frost this corn was beginning to come into roasting ears. But most of the ears had not developed kernels. I filled the silo from this field and got, as nearly as I could ascertain, just as much milk from my herd by feeding that silage as by feeding silage made from mature corn containing considerable grain. The same amount of dry grains were fed in both cases. According to analysis this result could not possibly be obtained. Experiments have been tried in which the whole wheat plant, grain, straw and all, also the oat plant and the corn plant were fed separately to young heifers. The heifers fed the corn plant grew to maturity and bore young normally. The heifers fed wheat and oats did poorly, produced their young prematurely, all but one of which died soon after birth. This does not indicate that oat or wheat feeds are not good for cattle, but in themselves they are not sufficient. I do not think this deficiency can be shown in the chemical analysis but some of the food elements are hard to get. I think if this wheat and oat plant had been young and tender as a growing grass instead of a mature grain the heifers would have done well. Ground oats is one of the best dairy feeds I ever tried. =Balanced Rations.= I do not know just to what extent a cow requires a balanced ration. Since some feeds have values over others that the chemical analysis does not show, I think the balanced ration figures and tables have been overworked. They are not entirely valueless, however. Some will be placed in this book. Everyone knows that a cow should not be fed one kind of feed only. We should give as great a variety of feeds as possible and the cow’s likes and dislikes, together with the results in the milk pail, give about all the information concerning a balanced feed that the writer has ever used. We do not need to worry about the supply of protein here because we use so much alfalfa, or about the carbohydrates when we are feeding the product of the corn plant.