DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY 233 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



oil. It is not a feed that is used on the farm save for calves (for which, in conjunction 

 with skim milk, it is highly esteemed), but linseed oil cake and oil meal, resulting 

 from the expression of the greater part of the oil from the flax seed, are feeds of 

 the very highest order for bringing up the proportion of protein and fat in the 

 ration, for both milk and beef production. 



Tankage. Laboratory No. 11250. — This is a by-product from an abattoir. As 

 received, it was a fine, dry powder of a dark-brown colour with the characteristic 

 and unpleasant smell of tankage and similar products. The percentage of protein 

 and fat are very fairly satisfactory for materials of this class: protein nearly, 00 

 per cent, fat almost 10 per cent, but, except in a limited way, in connection with 

 pig and poultry feeding, it is doubtful if tankage can be used to advantage as a food 

 on the farm; cattle and sheep find it unpalatable and generally refuse to eat it. It 

 is a feed which readily spoils, especially in warm, damp weather. From difficulty in 

 learning the nature and condition of the materials used in its manufacture, it is not 

 a feed to be generally recommended. 



Mola&sine Meal, No. 139^7. This feeding stuff is manufactured by the 

 Molassine Co., Ltd., London, England. It is prepared from crude molasses and 

 peat or moss — the latter constituent acting simply as an absorbent and not adding to 

 the nutritive value of the material though counteracting, it is claimed, the tendency 

 to ' looseness ' frequently induced when molasses alone is fed. This ' meal ' is in the 

 form of a loosely-held-together mass, brownish-black, slightly moist and sticky, but 

 readily crumbling on handling. 



The constituent of importance is sugar, of which there is 39-12 per cent present 

 in the sample examined. 



Considered solely from the point of view of their food value, molasses feeds in 

 general may be regarded simply as furnishing sugar, of which they usually contain 

 about 50 per cent. Sugar has a high value in the animal economy, as a source of 

 heat and energy and in the formation of fat. Its ready solubility, and the ease with 

 which it is digested and assimilated, gives sugar a high place among the carbo- 

 hydrates for these purposes. Apart from their direct food value, the molasses feeds 

 are stated to act beneficially in stimulating the appetite, increasing digestion, and 

 in keeping the animal in a thrifty condition. 



Molasses feeds cannot be used to supply deficiencies in protein and fat and, 

 therefore, are not in the same class as those concentrates which are solely used to 

 enrich the ration in these constituents. In most of them, the percentage of digestible 

 protein and fat is extremely small and may be disregarded. They are extremely 

 palatable and highly relished by cattle, but it is doubtful if they can be economically 

 employed in the ration beyond one-fifth to one-third of the whole, not merely by 

 reason of their poverty in protein and fat, but from the prices at which they are 

 sold, namely, $20 to $38 per ton, which can scarcely be justified simply on the grounds 

 of food value. 



Molascuit, Laboratory No. 13869. — This is a product made in Demerara, British 

 Guiana, from sugar cane fibre or pith (sugar cane from which the sugar has been 

 expressed and subsequently disintegrated) and molasses. The former is very absorbent 

 and constitutes an excellent medium for holding the molasses and presenting it in 

 a convenient form for feeding; it, however, does not contribute in any appreciable 

 degree to the nutritiousness of the mixture. In appearance this feed is brown and 

 fibrous (not unlike certain varieties of peat, but not quite so loo^e in character) and 

 slightly sticky. It has the smell of the coarser, unrefined grades of molasses. 



As regards protein and fat its value is negligible : its feeding properties are 

 dependent nnon the sugars present, of which, in the sample analyzed, there was 

 present 43-70 per cent. 



