188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



prove, that oxen and sheep are able to digest a considerable 

 portion of such matter, when it is not in too indurated a con- 

 dition. 



It will, of course, be understood, that a certain amount and 

 proportion of nitrogenous substance is essential in the food of 

 ■animals ; and if I were asked to state in general terms what was 

 the approximate proportion of the nitrogenous to the digestible 

 non-nitrogenous substances, below which they should not exist in 

 the food of our stock, I should say (though with reservations), 

 about such as we find them in the cereal grains ; and since few of 

 our stock foods are below, and many above, this in their pro- 

 portion of nitrogenous substance, it results that we are more like- 

 ly to give an excess than a deficiency of such constituents, so far 

 as the requirements of the animal are concerned. The value of 

 the manure depends however, very much on the amount of the 

 nitrogen which the food contains ; but to this point I shall recur 

 after directing attention to a few more points in connection with 

 the comparative values of different foods as such. 



Some years ago we published the results of some experiments 

 on the equivalency of starch and sugar in food, pigs being the 

 subject of the trial. Several lots having each a fixed and limited 

 quantity of lentil-meal and bran allowed, one was permitted to 

 take as much starch, another as much sugar, and another as much 

 of the mixture of the two as they chose ; whilst in another experi- 

 ment the animals were allowed to select at discretion from lentils, 

 bran, sugar or starch, each placed separately within their reach. 

 The result was, that sugar and starch were found to have, weight 

 for weight, practically the same value as constituents of food. 



These results would, a priori, lead to an answer in the negative 

 to the much agitated question, whether there is any advantage in 

 malting barley for feeding purposes. The chief effect of the malt- 

 ing process is to convert starch into sugar — not, it is true, sugar 

 of exactly the same description as that used in our experiments ; 

 but there is good reason for supposing that malt sugar would 

 have a lower value than cane sugar as a food constituent ; and 

 direct experiments, made many yctyrs ago at Rothamsted, have 

 shown that a given amount of malt, mixed with other food, gave 

 less rather than more increase than the amount of barley from 

 which it was produced. It is obvious, too, that as the conversion 

 of barley into malt is a manufacturing process, attended with con- 

 siderable cost, as well as actual loss of substance, the remission of 



