INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 187G. clxxxvii 



bor of several men for days, weeks, or even months, have already 

 been executed, and others are continually in progress. That so 

 enormous an amount of work should have been accomj^lished is ex- 

 plained by the fact that thirteen of the German stations, each em- 

 ploying from two to five chemists, are engaged in researches in an- 

 imal nutrition. 



Some lately reported feeding-trials with sheep, by Schulze and 

 Marcker at the station at Weende, in Hanover, are of interest as con- 

 firming the very important deductions from previous experiments 

 of the same class. It has been found that a certain portion of the 

 woody fibre of plant food is digestible and nutritious, from forty to 

 nearly seventy per cent, of the fibre in hay, clover, and straw being 

 digested by cattle and sheep, and a smaller proportion by horses. 

 This crude fibre consists of cellulose (which has the same composi- 

 tion as starch) and other materials richer in carbon. It is believed 

 that the cellulose constitutes the digestible part of the fibre. This 

 view^ finds a remarkable confirmation in experiments referred to, in 

 which the composition of the digested portion of the fibre coin- 

 cided almost exactly with that of cellulose. Results identical with 

 this have been found in numerous other experiments at Weende and 

 elsewhere. Journal fur Landwirthschaft^ 1875, s, 141. 



Effect of Albuminoids and Caj'Jiohydrates iipon Digestion. It is a 

 familiar fact that all ordinary fodder materials consist of water, min- 

 eral matters, and two chisses ot organic substances the albuminoids 

 (gluten, fibrin, etc.), which contain nitrogen, and the carbohydrates 

 (sugar, starch, cellulose, etc.) and fats, which contain no nitrogen. 

 One of the important principles brought out by the German experi- 

 ments is that unless foods, especially mixed rations, contain a sufii- 

 cient proi)ortion of albuminoids, they are not economically digested. 

 When carbohydrates, as sugar or starch, or materials rich in these, 

 as potatoes, are fed in considerable quantities with hay and straw, 

 less of the latter is digested than when they are fed alone. On the 

 other hand, nitrogenous substances, as gluten and, likewise, foods 

 rich in albuminoids, as oil-cake, cotton-seed meal, beans, pease, and 

 bran, when fed even in considerable quantities with hay and straw, 

 do not decrease the digestion. Thus, in the experiments of Schulze 

 and Marcker, mentioned above, large quantities of gluten of wheat, 

 and of bean-meal as well, caused no depression in the digestion of 

 hay or aftemiath, while the addition of starch and sugar to the ra- 

 tion decreased the digestion of the whole organic substance of the 

 former by nine per cent., that of the albuminoids by fifteen per cent., 

 and that of the crude fibre by eight per cent. 



Lupines as Food for Sheep. Quite in accordance with the above 

 are the results of late experiments by Dr. Stohmann, director of the 

 station at Leipsic, on lupines (seeds) as food for sheep. The lupines 

 proved almost completely digestible, and (being highly nitrogenous) 



