Agricultural Chemistry — Sheep- Feeding and Manure. 305 



actual composition of the latter, materially affect the amount of 

 increase obtained. 



Comparing the results of the several pens one with another, 

 we find that the amounts of food consumed to produce the same 

 effect were (excepting the case of the malt) such as to supply 

 nearly identical amounts of gross dry-organic-matter ; though, 

 allowing for the varying amount of effete matter in the several 

 substances, there would appear to have been notably less of such 

 as would be really available as food, in proportion as the supply 

 of nitrogen is greater. The amounts of nitrogen are seen to be 

 less uniform than in several cases in the former series, yet here, 

 as in the latter (excepting in the case of the malt), the increase 

 is less in 'proportion to the nitrogen consumed, the larger the 

 amount of the latter, though the actual increase is somewhat 

 greater. Indeed, whether we view the results alone or con- 

 jointly with those which have gone before, it may safely be con- 

 cluded that in all the pens in this second series the supply of 

 nitrogenous compounds within a given time exceeded the limit 

 that would have been required to yield the result obtained, pro- 

 vided the ?w;i-nitrogenous ones had been better adapted to the 

 season, and to the natural inclinations of the animals at the time. 



If we take the indications of the malt-pen as given in the Table, 

 and calculated from the results of the entire period of the experi- 

 ments, we see that there was a considerably larger amount of 

 dry-organic-matter consumed in it, to produce a given effect, than 

 in any of the other cases, and the amount of nitrogen moreover 

 was considerably greater than in the case of the barley ; and when 

 it is considered that the dry-organic-matter of the malt would be 

 nearly one-tenth less than that in the barley from which it was 

 produced, the results tell still less favourably to the malt. If we 

 were to make the calculations upon the results of the first eleven 

 weeks, however, instead of the nineteen weeks as supposed 

 above, the comparison would still, though to a small degree, be in 

 favour of the barley, irrespectively of the cost of the malting 

 process. 



Relying upon the results of these experiments, it would appear 

 that the increase obtained by the consumption of a given amount 

 of w?zmalted barley is considerably greater than would be pro- 

 duced by the same amount after it had been subjected to the 

 malting process ; and, indeed, that not only is the weight of the 

 malt considerably less than that of the barley which yielded it, 

 but that weight for weight ; independently of loss and cost of pro- 

 cess, the feeding qualities of the former are not superior to those 

 of the latter. It would obviously be unsafe, however, to trust to 

 the results of a single experiment ; and since, in the one in 

 question, dry food alone was given, the malt-dust was not em- 



vol. x. x 



