COI.ORADO F 0 DDE:rS. 
85 
the three sheep, which certainly ought to have more weight than my 
opinion that the sorghum is a better fodder than these results in¬ 
dicate. We did not make as full a study of the sorghum as of the 
other fodders and for these two reasons I have less to say about the 
sorghum than about the others. 
§200. With this explanation regarding the sorghum, I will 
consider the saltbush as constituting the most inferior fodder of the 
‘series, and yet, as stated before, this fodder is richer in proteids than 
either of the remaining five, alfalfa alone excepted. With the alfalfa, 
we fed, in round numbers, 2,000 grams of proteids, coefficient of di¬ 
gestion 72.5, with the saltbush practically 1,900 grams, coefficient 
of digestion 66.4. The three sheep fed on alfalfa gained 9 pounds, 
those fed on saltbush lost pounds. It is, of course, wholly im¬ 
probable that other constituents had no disturbing effects on the re¬ 
sults, but it is also very probable that the nitrogenous substances 
soluble in the different reagents are of very different value and it is 
not the amount of the proteids (N x 6.25) present, but their char¬ 
acter which determines their value. It may be that the large amount 
of chlorin-soluble nitrogen present in the saltbush, constitutes not 
only an analytical difference, but a nutritive one also. It is evident 
that the sheep digested rather more proteids when fed on alfalfa but 
the difference is not very big, 239 grams. The amounts of proteids 
digested where corn fodder was fed were quite small, less than one- 
fifth of that digested in the case of the saltbush and one-sixth of that 
in the case of the alfalfa. The amount digested when native hay was 
fed was less than one-half of that digested in the case of the saltbush. 
Both the native hay and' corn fodder proved to be good fodders, all 
of the sheep gaining while receiving them; the aggregate gain in the 
two lots of three sheep each, was three and one-half pounds for each 
lot. 
§201. The animals were not fattened on these fodders and 
killed to see the relation of muscle to fat, so I do not know anything 
about this feature of their effects. The amount of the alcohol-solu¬ 
ble proteids in the corn fodder is larger than that in any of the 
other solvents, being 217 grams out of a total of 473 grams. In 
the case of the native hay the two solvents removing the largest 
quantities of proteids are the sodic hydrate and alcohol. The con¬ 
trast in the results produced in these experiments is that the sheep 
receiving saltbush digested 1,091 grams of proteids and were losing 
flesh, some of them rapidly; those receiving the other fodders were 
gaining, though they received much smaller amounts of proteids 
with either the corn fodder or native hay and only 239 grams more 
when fed alfalfa, but in this case the lot made a gain of nine pounds 
against a loss of 8^4 pounds in the lot receiving saltbush. 
§202. The question which I have tried to present is, do the 
