COMPENSATION FOR FOOD IN MANURE. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH SHEEP. 

 Table No. 1. 



417 



It will be seen that there is a steady change in the digest- 

 ibility of grass cut at different periods. The grass cut 

 May 14th had 75.8 per cent, digestible matter ; while the 

 same grass cut June 26th had only 57.5 per cent, diges- 

 tible. Other experiments have shown the same difference 

 in the digestibility of clover cut before blossoming, while 

 in blossom, and after blossoming. This table should be 

 well studied, as a lesson on the proper time to cut grass for 

 hay. The percentage digestible of any constituent is called 

 by Dr. Wolff its " digestion co-efficient." From this it is 

 easy to determine what proportion of nitrogen passes into 

 the solid and liquid excrement. 



Suppose we take oats: 85.5 is its "digestion co-efficient"; 

 that is, this is the percentage of the albuminoids of oats 

 that is digestible by sheep, and therefore the indigestible 



