450 



FEEDING ANIMALS. 



upon hay, oats, and oil-cake. The hay during the first two 

 periods was early-cut and nicely-cured meadow hay, and 

 during the other periods was aftermath. The following 

 table gives the amount of food, gain, etc. : 



It appears from the above table that the daily gain in the 

 first two periods was very uniform, in the third period fell 

 off 72 per cent., in the fourth period was 50 per cent, of the 

 second, and in the fifth period increased 50 per cent, over 

 the fourth. This experiment, although it illustrates the 

 law of growth that the younger the animal the greater 

 the gain from a given amount of food yet there are such 

 irregularities visible as to deprive it of much authoritative 

 value. The number of animals is quite too small. 



The following experiments by Stohmann were upon 

 lambs seven to eight months old, fed upon straw, potatoes, 

 clover-hay, and oil-cake. These were combined into rations 

 for the four different lots of lambs, each slightly varying 

 from the others. These lambs were fed four months before 

 shearing and one month after shearing. The nitrogen- 

 ous and non-nitrogenous elements of the ration per day 

 per head, gain per day, etc., are shown in the following 

 table : 



