138 The Feeding of Animals 



Nine American experiments have been the means of 

 studying results with large and small ruminants, steers 

 being compared with sheep and cows with goats. In 

 five cases, the large animal digested from 5 to 14 per 

 cent the more, in three cases the excess for the small 

 animal varied between 7 and 17 per cent, and in one 

 case there was little difference. The general effect of 

 such conflicting results is to confirm the older and 

 more numerous observations. 



The horse and ruminants differ in digestive ca- 

 pacity to a marked extent. The comparisons which 

 have been made show a uniformly lower digestive effi- 

 ciency for coarse fodders on the part of the former. 

 It appears that because of less perfect mastication, or 

 for some other reason, the horse dissolves much less 

 of the crude fiber than the steer or sheep, and the 

 effect of this is prominent with hays and other fibrous 

 materials. With the grains, ruminant and equine diges- 

 tion is not greatly unlike, eight samples of oats with* 

 sheep and twenty -four with the horse showing almost 

 identical digestion of the dry matter. With maize the 

 case is the same. In experiments with beans, the ad- 

 vantage was slightly with the ruminant. So far as 

 we are able to judge, swine digest concentrated food 

 about as do ruminants and the horse. How this is 

 in the case of the fodders we do not know fully, 

 but it is proven that the swine digest crude fiber quite 

 freely! 



Past experiments have not revealed any influence of 

 breed upon digestive capacity. There is no reason for 

 supposing that Shorthorn cattle, Southdown sheep and 



