4 BULLETIN" 378, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
In 1908 Lindsey 1 reported that in Europe a great variety of meat and fish 
meals had been offered for sale as stock foods as early as 1872. A review of 
a number of experiments with horses, cattle, sheep, and swine established the 
fact that these materials, when properly prepared, are excellent foods for stock 
and poultry, and that they are highly digestible. 
Notwithstanding the favorable reports recorded on the use of fish 
meal it was ignored at this time, preference being given to dried 
blood and tankage. This was in part due, no doubt, to the fact 
that the industries producing these were more highly organized and 
their selling arrangements proportionately greater. 
Turrentine 3 calls attention to the use of fish scraps as a feeding stuff for 
poultry and stock and gives extended quotations from the report by Goode, 
cited above. From his review of the early feeding of fish in this country he 
concludes that " the universally affirmative results of all the recorded experi- 
ments with fish scrap as a cattle feed leave little room for doubt as to its 
efficiency." He remarks further : " It is indeed surprising that its use as a 
feed has not been more generally introduced. * * * It would be fitting, 
indeed, that even a small part of the millions of pounds of combined nitrogen 
carried seaward annually by the rivers should be returned and after a short 
cycle again should be rendered suitable for man's consumption." 
According to Kellner s milch cows may be fed as high as 2 pounds per day 
with no objectionable taste or flavor resulting in the milk or butter. Feeding 
to sheep or horses is best accomplished by mixing it with other feeds. It is 
recommended that one-half pound per day be given. 
F. Lehmann 4 ranks fish meal next to meat meal in its content of nourishing 
material. Laboratory experiments showed that 98.6 per cent of the protein 
was digested with pepsin and pancreatic extract. It is also pointed out that 
fish meal, on account of the length of time required to render the nitrogen and 
phosphates available for plant assimilation, is not a very good fertilizer; but 
that it is a very good feeding stuff and when so used its fertilizing value is 
enhanced, since the fertilizing ingredients reappear in the manure in forms 
more easily used by plants. 
Kuhn-Cornieten 5 conducted a practical test with six cows, comparing the 
yield and quality of milk and butter when the cows were fed a ration containing 
no fish meal with the results obtained when fish meal was substituted for dried 
malt husks and sunflower meal in the basal ration. From 1£ to 2 $ pounds (Ger- 
man) fish meal were fed per head per day in the different trials. The milk 
produced during the experiment was analyzed. The yield of milk was fairly well 
maintained during the time fish meal was given, while the percentage of fat In 
the milk was increased. The butter did not have a fishy odor or taste and was 
declared to be about the same in quality as that produced on oil cakes. Since 
the quantity of milk was about the same, the percentage of fat higher, and the 
feed cheaper, it was concluded that fish meal was a valuable feeding stuff. 
Fink 8 fattened steers with a ration including fish meal at the rate of 3 
pounds per head per day. A gain of 303 pounds in 90 days was made. Nothing 
is stated in regard to the flavor of the meat. 
i Mass. Sta. Rpt., 1908, pt. 2, p. 149. 
2 " The fish-scrap fertilizer industry of the Atlantic coast " ; Bui. No. 2, U. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture. 
3 Die Erniihrung d-landw. Nutzthiere, pp. 369-371. 
« Landw. Wochenbl. f. Schleswig. Holstein, 1892, No. 23 ; pp. 200-201. 
•Molkerei Zeitung, 1894, 8 (44), p. 675. 
•Deut. Landw. Presse, 1896, 23 (17) 1, p. 145. 
