66 MANUAL OF CATTLE-FEEBING. 



If tlie fodder be poor in albuminoids and rich in starch, 

 tlie Litter may escape digestion in considerable quantities; 

 and as it is of no value in the manure (since it only f ur- 

 niblies to tlie plant the elements of carbonic acid and water, 

 with both of which it is richly supplied by the atmospheie) 

 that whickthus escapes is a dead loss, while if, on account 

 of a too gi^eat proportion of albuminoids, a portion of these 

 pass into the manure, they still are able to furnish the 

 plant with the valuable element, nitrogen. 



In a properly proportioned fodder, however, the quan- 

 tity of really digestible matters that escapes digestion is 

 comparatively small, although ^fepfect digestion of them 

 is not to be expected. Small portions will escape diges- 

 tion, either owing to their hardness and impermeability, 

 or to their being protected by insoluble matters, or simply 

 from the fact that they are not exposed for a sufficient 

 time to the action of the digestive fluids. 



This is shown by the fact that the ruminants, in which 

 the process of digesiion is long, extending through two 

 or three days, are able to digest more of hard and diffi- 

 cultly soluble matters, especially of cmde fibre, than other 

 herbivora, in which the process is simpler and shorter, the 

 horse, e. g, 



§ 2. Besorption. 



We have seen that the process of digestion is essentially 

 a process of solution, the various nutrients of the food be- 

 ing altered into soluble forms and^ dissolved by the diges- 

 tive fluids. 



But the digested food, so long as it remains in the ali- 

 mentary canal, is, to a certain extent, still outside the 

 body ; it has not yet been taken up into its vessels and be- 

 come really a part of it. It must still be resorl/ed or taken 



