Influence of Palatdbleness , Quantity 127 



state of vigorous activity on the part of the digestive 

 organs. The experienced feeder knows well the value 

 of stimulating the appetite of his animals by means of 

 attractive mixtures. An agreeable flavor or taste adds 

 nothing to the energy or building capacity of a food, 

 but it does tend to secure a thorough appropriation of 

 the nutrients which enter the alimentary canal. With- 

 out doubt, the success of one feeder as compared with 

 the failure of another may sometimes be due, in part, 

 to a superior manner of presenting a ration to the 

 animal's attention and to manipulations that add to 

 the agreeableness of its flavors. 



INFLUENCE OF QUANTITY OF RATION 



Early experiments by Wolff, in which he fed larger 

 and smaller rations of the same fodder to the same 

 animals, have been made the authority for the state- 

 ment that a full ration is as completely digested as a 

 scanty one, provided the former does not pass the nor- 

 mal capacity of the animal. It must be said, however, 

 that the testimony concerning this point is not unani- 

 mous. Since Wolff's experiments, Weiske, in feeding 

 oats to rabbits, found the digestibility to be inversely 

 as the quantity of food taken. In experiments with 

 oxen, by G. Kiihn, at Mockern, when the grain ra- 

 tion was doubled the digestibility of the malt sprouts 

 used was decreased about nine per cent. Results at 

 the New York Experiment Station from feeding full 

 and half rations to four sheep showed uniformly higher 

 digestion coefficients with the smaller ration, the differ- 



