Agricultural Chemistry — Sheep-Feeding and Manure. 297 



latter not taking all that was provided for them at the com- 

 mencement of the experiment, the average weekly consumption 

 of malt is rather less than it was^intended it should be, and by so 

 much less than that of barley. We shall see further on, how- 

 ever, that this circumstance brings the experiments in some re- 

 spects more nearly to the conditions required for exact comparison 

 of the relative feeding values of the two substances than had the 

 designed amount been eaten ; for, though the actual weight of 

 malt was less than that of barley, the amounts of dry-organic- 

 matter consumed in the two cases are almost identical, aud the 

 quantity of malt actually taken moreover exceeded to a small ex- 

 tent that which would have been yielded by the amount of barley, 

 with which its effects have to be compared. 



It will be remembered, that in the first series of experiments 

 there was so serious a variation in the degree of progress of the 

 different animals on the same food, that the results were consi- 

 dered to be quite unfit to be taken as representing as they stood 

 the comparative values of the several foods. This variation was 

 specially remarkable in the pen upon oil-cake, and considerably 

 with that upon oats, and it was attributed to a faulty matching of 

 the animals ; and it was suggested also that any defective vigour 

 of constitution might probably be more likely prominently to 

 show itself in disease upon the higher foods, such as oil-cake, 

 than upon others. Be this as it may, Table 4, just given, shows 

 a great improvement in this respect, and especially in Pen 1, in 

 which again oil- cake is the special food, the uniformity is quite as 

 good as could be at all anticipated. In Pen 2, with linseed, there 

 is much less regularity than in Pen I, there being one sheep 

 giving an increase low compared with the rest, and another giv^ing 

 one as much higher; the two giving a mean so near to that of the 

 other three, however, that the average of the entire pen may pro- 

 bably be taken as not far from a fair measure of the effect of this 

 food as compared with the others. Although the general uni- 

 formity within each pen in this entire series is such as to give 

 some confidence in the results compared one with another, yet 

 the average weekly increase is throughout considerably less than 

 in the case of the former series, notwithstanding that the animals 

 were somewhat heavier to begin with, that the temperature of the 

 period was considerably higher, and the amounts consumed of 

 some of the more important constituents of food were greater. 

 This may be supposed to be due to the fact of confinement 

 within doors being less appropriate during the summer period, 

 and perhaps indeed not attended with benefit as in the colder 

 one, in part to the want of green food, which is so much relished 

 during the summer season, and also in part to a rather long con- 

 tinuance of the same food, for in the last column of the Table in 



