32 N. C. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
Steer No. 1 left no waste, and that of Steer No. 2 was assumed to 
be as digestible as what he ate, but its composition, as shown in 
Table XVIII, indicates that it was even more digestible. What he 
ate had the following percentage composition, calculated from the 
line of total consumed: Total protein, 17.1; fats, 4.9; nitrogen-free 
extract, 55.8; crude fiber, 17.3. A comparison of these figures with 
the composition of waste shows the waste contained more cotton¬ 
seed meal than what was eaten, and indicates very clearly that the 
waste was at least not less digestible than the portion eaten, thus 
throwing the error of the assumption on the side of decreasing the 
difference between the actual and calculated results. 
The results in these tables show the total dry matter of the com¬ 
bination of silage and meal to be more digestible than silage alone 
and meal, calculated as in tables for first ration. The increase in 
this ration is double with one animal and triple with one what it 
was in the first. This growing increase in the digestibility of rations 
of silage and meal with the increase of the proportion of meal in 
the ration, and out of proportion to the digestibility of silage alone 
and of meal in the ration of meal and clover hay referred to, 
indicates that the highly nitrogenous cotton-seed meal has very 
favorably affected the digestibility of the corn silage. In experi¬ 
ments made heretofore upon the subject of determining the effect of 
protein substances and nitrogenous by-fodders upon the digestibility 
of coarse ones, and vice versa , the conclusion generally given out has 
been that neither influenced the digestibility of the other.* 
As further evidence of the increased digestibility of the silage duo 
to the cotton-seed meal in the ration, it will be observed from table 
for Steer No. 1, where there was no waste to be taken into account, 
that had it been attempted to calculate the digestibility of the meal 
in the ration in the way it is usually done, the digestibility of the 
silage being known, more than 100 per cent, would have been found 
digestible. Like data to this could not be shown in the other tables, 
on account of the wastes. It is, of course, manifestly impossible for 
the silage to thus affect the digestibility of the meal, and it remains 
but to say that the increased digestibility of the combinations is 
due, largely, at least, to the narrowing of the nutritive ratio of the 
corn silage by the highly nitrogenous cotton -seed meal, thereby 
accelerating, very materially, the amounts of digestible nitrogen- 
free extract and crude fiber of the silage, and decreasing slightly 
the amount of digestible protein, most likely of the cotton-seed 
meal. The nutritive ratio of the cotton-seed meal was widened by 
the presence of the corn silage, and the digestibility of its protein 
was probably decreased because of this, but this slight decrease does 
not, by any means, counterbalance the increase in the digestibility 
of the carbohydrates. The gain in carbohydrates is as much above 
the loss in protein as the increase in the actual digestion of the corcu 
* Armsby’s Manual Cattle-feeding, page 277. 
