90 



HEALTH AND DISEASE 



Digestibility of Foods.— Experiments to determine the digestibility 

 of the different kinds of food, a matter of the greatest importance to stock- 

 owners, have not been carried on to any extent, if at all, in this country, 

 and the author of The Chemistry of the Farm remarks that our know- 

 ledge concerning the digestion of food by farm animals is derived almost 

 entirely from German investigations. He quotes from the work of Dr. 

 E. Wolff, Die Ernahrung der landivirthschaftlichen Nutzthiere, and as 

 the information is exceedingly valuable it is desirable to give a summary 

 of it here. 



The experiments were chiefly conducted, in the first instance, with 

 oxen, cows, sheep and goats, but Dr. Wolff carried on special investigations 

 on the digestive powers of the horse, in comparison with those of the sheep, 

 the same food being supplied to each animal. The general results are shown 

 in the two following tables, which indicate the proportion of each constituent 

 digested out of 100 parts of each kind of food supplied: — 



Experiments with Horses 



* Mean of Several Experiments. 



On comparing these figures it is evident that a horse digests meadow 

 grass and hay less perfectly than a sheep does, and the difference between 

 them is apparently as great when the food is young grass as when the 



