232 Report of Farmers' Institutes 



out nutritive ratios, total nutriment and the like, I am wonder- 

 ing if, for the sake of uniformity alone, we would not be justi- 

 fied in adopting a standard method even though it may not he 

 entirely grounded on good statistical experimental data. If so, 

 what would this system he ? The total chemical composition of 

 feeds is undoubtedly the most inaccurate. We have seen, further, 

 that digestion by poultry seems to be more nearly like cattle than 

 it is like swine, and, coupled with this fact, if we agree that fowls 

 do not digest fiber, I offer you the suggestion that we might find 

 it advantageous, at the present time, to use the easily computed 

 method of eliminating the fiber from the digested nutrients as 

 obtained from experiments with cattle, and adopt these values in 

 computing the nutritive ratio and the total nutriment of our 

 poultry rations. 



