clxxxviii GfeNEKAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



exerted a very favorable influence uj^on the digestion of the hay. 

 From twenty to thirty-nine per cent, more of the crude fibre was di- 

 gested from the hay fed with lupines than from the same hay when 

 fed alone. To the bitter taste, which renders lupines unpalatable to 

 cattle, sheep do not seem to object. As a rich food for fattening 

 sheep. Dr. Stohmann says that lupines rightly used can hardly be 

 too warmly recommended. Mittheilungen des landw. Institutes der 

 Unwersitdt Leipzig^ Berlin^ 1876. 



Effect of Potatoes and Turnips on Digestion of Hay and other Coarse 

 Foods. It is well known that a large number of experiments have 

 been made within the last few years in the German stations on the 

 influence of potatoes and turnips upon the digestion of hay and other 

 coarse foods with which they are fed. It has been found that con- 

 centrated foods which contain little albuminoids and considerable 

 carbohydrates (starch, sugar, etc.) decrease the digestion of coarse 

 foods, and that this is quite true of turnij^s, and still more true of 

 potatoes. This fact is shown in a remarkably decisive manner by 

 the results of over one hundred experiments with sheep, conducted 

 by Wolff and others during the past few years at the exjDeriment 

 station at Hohenheim. Wolff concludes that, as other experiments 

 have indicated, the decrease of digestion of hay is decided by the 

 proportion of albuminoids to carbohydrates in the whole ration ; 

 while potatoes, turnips, and other foods rich in carbohydrates, mixed 

 with hay, decrease the digestion of the latter. If nitrogenous ma- 

 terials be added, the effect of the carbohydrates is counteracted. 

 Landwirthschaftliche VersucJis-Stationen.^ 1876, XIX., s. 35. 



Influence of Fats ttjjon Digestion. Dr. Wolfi" has reported some ex- 

 periments upon the much-discussed subject of the influence of the 

 fats and oils of food upon digestion. Four full-grown wethers were 

 fed, in each of several experiments, with hay to which were added, in 

 the individual trials, concentrated foods, in some cases nearly free 

 from oils, and in others containing more or less fatty or oily sub- 

 stance. Bran meal, palm-oil cake, with varying quantities of oil, 

 were the substances employed. Wolff concludes from these experi- 

 ments that the fat in nitrogenous foods causes no alteration in the 

 digestibility of the albuminoids, unless, as is ajDt to be the case when 

 an excess of oily substance is fed, a disturbance of the digestion 

 is thereby brought about. LandwirtJiscJiaftUclie Versuclis-Stationen^ 

 1876, XIX., s. 49. 



Influence of Salt upon Digestion. Weiske and assistants have ex- 

 perimented upon the influence of salt upon the digestion of fodder 

 by sheep. In the first of four periods, no salt ; in the second, five 

 grammes (about one sixth of an ounce) per head per day; in the 

 third, ten grammes ; and in the fourth, none was given with the food, 

 the latter consisting of hay, straw, and barley. No essential varia- 

 tion in the digestion of either albuminoids, crude fibre, or other car- 



