MILK PRODUCTION 523 



Subsequent experiments by Fingerling 1 fully confirmed these 

 results. The addition to the flavorless rations, or to damaged 

 hay, of salt, hay distillate, fennel, or even the impregnation of 

 rations with the odor of the latter substances, caused a marked 

 increase in the yield of milk and in its content of fat as well as 

 in the percentage of fat in the milk solids, while similar additions 

 to normal rations were without effect. Fingerling's experi- 

 ments likewise show clearly, however, that this effect of flavor- 

 ing materials, while of much physiological interest, can rarely 

 be of much economic importance and they lend no support to 

 the claims of the numerous condimental feeds, milk powders, 

 etc., so largely advertised. It was also shown that certain 

 feeding stuffs (malt sprouts, palmnut cake, cocoa cake and 

 beet molasses) when added to a ration of damaged hay and pure 

 nutrients increased the milk and fat yields to about the same 

 extent as flavoring with fennel. Whether these effects are due 

 to some form of nerve stimulus, either general or specific, or to 

 an increased production of the hormones of milk production 

 (549) does not appear. 



618. Specific effects of feeds. The fact just noted that 

 certain feeds stimulate the production of milk and of milk fat, 

 appparently by their influence on the flavor of rations, leads 

 naturally to a consideration of the so-called " specific " effects 

 of feeds in general. The belief has long been held in practice 

 that feeding stuffs may promote milk production and improve 

 the quality of the milk to an extent not fully explained by the 

 amounts of digestible matter or of energy which they supply. 

 On the other hand, there has been no general agreement as to 

 what particular feeding stuffs possess this power, and scientific 

 investigators have been led to question the existence of such 

 effects, particularly upon the composition of milk. A discus- 

 sion of the literature of the subject up to 1903 by Lemmermann 

 and Linkh 2 affords striking instances of the discrepancies be- 

 tween different experiments. The effects of such feeds as 

 palmnut meal, cocoa meal, and cottonseed meal, for example, 

 are reported by different experimenters as favorable, unfavor- 

 able or indifferent. 



1 Landw. Vers. Stat., 62 (1905), u; 64 (1906), 357; 67 (1907), 253; 71 (1909), 

 373; 74 (1911), 163. 



2 Landw. Jahrb., 33 (1903), 564. 



