C. Crowther and H. E. Woodman 445 



There can be little doubt that Kellner's figures for organic matter, 

 protein and fibre in the case of the meal are much too high. It is 

 difficult, however, to resist the conclusion that the meal is in fact 

 rather more highly digestible than the cake, and that this conclusion 

 applies especially to the crude fibre, although it is not clear why such 

 should be the case. 



Comparison of Palm Keenel Cake and Meal with 

 Undecorticated Cottonseed Cake. 



It was explained at the outset that Period III was included in this 

 experiment in order that a direct comparison might be made between 

 palm kernel cake and undecorticated cottonseed cake, the latter being 

 selected as an oil-cake in wide use and not widely different in general 

 chemical composition from palm kernel cake. 



Of the two palm kernel cakes used it is desirable to restrict the com- 

 parison to palm kernel cake II, since the conditions under which its 

 digestibility was determined (Period II) were strictly comparable with 

 those of Period III, the weights of hay and cake consumed being exactly 

 the same in each. For the palm kernel meal only the one pair of deter- 

 minations is available. 



The average digestion coefficients of the two cakes, and of the meal, 

 are reproduced below: 



It is obvious at a glance that the cottonseed cake compares very 

 unfavourably with the palm kernel cake, and hence still more so with 

 the palm kernel meal. In view of claims for relatively high digestibility 

 made by Kellner it may be noted however that the crude fibre of the 

 palm kernel foods did not surpass in digestibility that of the cottonseed 

 cake, the coefficient for the latter being practically identical with the 

 average of the former. 



Applying the foregoing coefficients to the composition of each 

 feeding-stuf? as given in Table I we arrive at the following percentages 

 of digestible ingredients: 



