162 THE CHEMISTRY OF THE FAEM 



or oilcake will have a nearly similar feeding value if 

 supplied to an animal receiving a sufficient amount of 

 albuminoids in its diet, as, for instance, if given to 

 sheep feeding on grass or clover. In the Woburn 

 experiments, the rotation clover was consumed on the 

 land by sheep receiving 728 lbs. of decorticated cotton- 

 cake, or 728 lbs. of maize meal, per acre. The average 

 gain in weight of ten sheep, in eight annual trials, was 

 362J lbs. when receiving the cake, and 356i lbs. when 

 fed with an equal quantity of maize. 



The general practical lesson to be drawn from this 

 section is that many foods can be substituted for each 

 other without altering the value of the whole diet. A 

 farmer should be able to introduce economy into his 

 feeding by watching the market and making use of 

 iihose foods which are cheapest. In making his selec- 

 tion, the manure value of the food must, however, be 

 taken into account (see p. 219). 



(8) Proportion of A Ibumifioids to Non-A Ihuminoids. — 

 A point of some importance in determining the suita- 

 bility of a food as an article of diet is the proportion 

 between the digestible albuminoid and the digestible 

 non-albuminoid organic constituents : this relation is 

 most conveniently termed the *' albuminoid ratio " of 

 the food. Before calculating this relation, the non- 

 albuminoid ingredients of the food are first reduced to 

 their equivalent in starch.* 



> The equivalent of the non-nitrogenous matter in starch may be 

 found with sufficient accuracy by multipying the digestible fat by 2-3, 

 and adding to this the amount of digestible carbohydrates and the 

 digestible fibre. The non- albuminoids are approximately found by 

 adding to this total the digestible amides, previously multiplied by 0*6. 



