Colorado Hays and Fodders. 
39 
is very high. The effect of this fodder upon the animals was very 
marked. The animals seemed to suffer no inconvenience, they 
looked as bright and contented as usual and chewed their cuds 
freely. There was no laxative, but a very marked diuretic action 
observed. I regret that I was not provided with facilities for 
collecting the urine. It would be interesting to know the amount 
voided and its nitrogen content. The water drunk daily by the 
same sheep varied from 1.5 to 4.5 pounds when fed native hay and 
a little salt, but this amount of water was increased to 10.5 to 
15.0 pounds when they were fed on the salt bush and salt was 
withheld. Sheep No. 5 drank from 1.5 to 3.0 pounds of water 
when fed on native hay, but drank from 12 to 14 pounds daily 
when fed on the salt bush; but No. 6 drank the maximum quan- 
ties of water, from 13 to 15 pounds. There is no proof that the 
excessive amount of urine voided was due to the specific action of 
any substance contained in the plant, and it seems rather more 
probable that the large amount of saline matter taken into the 
system, 782.59 grams, a trifle over five ounces daily, provoked an 
intense thirst, as indicated by their drinking from three to eight 
times the amount of water usually drank by these individual 
animals, which flooded the system and had to be voided. 
The weather at the time, the first week in June, was fine, the 
temperature of the water drank 13 deg.-14 deg. C. 
Had the weather been cold and. stormy and the water which 
the animal drank very cold, the results would have been less fa¬ 
vorable than those observed. It must be kept in mind that this 
hay was put up for the purpose of feeding it to animals, already 
reduced in flesh and vitality, to take them over stormy periods. 
The general result of the experiment is not encouraging. 
Some of the fodder constituents, the protein, for instance, 
show a comparatively good coefficient and there is a fair amount 
of it contained in the fodder. The same is true of the nitrogen 
free extract. The coefficient for the fat is good and compared 
with other plants there is a fair amount of it, but these good feat¬ 
ures of the salt bush as a fodder plant are offset by this thirst 
provoking and diuretic effect, whether the latter is consequent 
upon the former or not. I omit the composition of the ash in 
the hay and the feces, but may take it up in a later bulletin. 
This bulletin is already longer than I desired it to be, and as 
each set of experiments summarizes itself I will not recapitulate the 
results here. 
This bulletin will be followed very shortly by another, in 
which I shall take up some subjects omitted in this, i. e., the di¬ 
gestibility of the various extracts, alcoholic, aqueous, etc., together 
with the digestibility of the pentosans occurring in these fodders. 
All of these hays and fodders have been cured and preserved 
