PART FOURTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

 Molasses for Feeding 1 . 



Early experi- THE ^ rs ^ one * suggest molasses as a fodder was Hermstadt, 

 ments in molas- in 1811. A special forage was, as early as 1830, made up of 

 ses feeding, chopped straw and 100 kilos of molasses, as a total daily ration 

 for 80 head of cattle, 2000 sheep and 20 horses. Petibval, who 

 is a thorough believer in the importance of this utilization, 

 especially for horses, at that time declared that with molasses 

 half a ration of oats was sufficient, and numerous other ex- 

 amples could be given of the same kind. 



In Germany, the first efforts to be recorded in this direction 

 were by Stockhardt, in 1850, and later by Henneberg and Stoh- 

 man, who fed to cattle a mixture of molasses, oat-straw and hay. 

 They limited the amount of molasses to be absorbed to 8 kilos 

 per 1UOO kilos live weight of the animal fed. 



In 1860, Fromenn and Rhode did not obtain very satisfactory 

 results with milch cows fed with flour, straw and molasses. 

 Gohren, on the other hand, had most excellent returns later on. 



At this same period (1860), the use of molasses became very 

 general in France and Russia. In the last-mentioned country 

 it was noticed that molasses, when combined with straw or 

 chopped hay, overcame certain existing diseases. Excellent 

 results were also obtained on these lines in Bohemia. 



In England, the use of molasses for cattle was not general be- 

 fore 1870. With the exception of the investigations of Rimpau 

 and Christian! nothing remarkable was noticed in favor of 

 molasses feeding. On the contrary, the peasants looked upon 

 this product with apprehension, as they feared diarrhoea. 

 Furthermore, the cost of molasses increased owing to the fact 

 that it had a certain use in for the separation methods in sugar 



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