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New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 131 
ers. Already more than thirty feeding trials have been made in 
America to determine the digestibility of single foods but of 
rations little seems to be known as to their digestibility. The 
feeding trials were made to determine the digestibility of certain 
rations and to make a beginning for studying the influence upon 
the digestibility of different foods compounded into a ration. 
A few trials like these can answer no mooted question, but by 
beginning the work and carefully recording the data we have per- 
haps the foundation laid for future work, and may gather sugges- 
tions as to certain lines best to be followed out in order to arrive 
at practical results. 
| EXPERIMENT I. 
Object. As lucerne or alfalfa is now receiving considerable 
attention it was thought advisable to have a feeding trial to learn 
something of the value and digestibility of alfalfa hay. 
Animal.— A Jersey cow, Flora, 4 years old, two months in milk. 
Food.— Alfalfa hay in sufficient quantity. 
EXPERIMENT II. 
Object.— The hay fed by the majority of farmers is a mixture of 
grasses and clover and such a hay was selected (consisting mainly 
of timothy and clover), in order to find what proportion of it was 
digested and to serve as the basis for calculation in our winter’s 
feeding trial. 
Animal. Grade Holstein heifer, Spot, 2 years old, used in the 
feeding experiment, Lot I. 
Food.— Hay as already described in sufficient quantity. 
EXPERIMENT III. 
Object.— Roots are fed to quite an extent and this experiment 
was planned to see whether in a ration of hay and roots there 
would be any manifest influence of the roots on the digestibility 
of the hay. 
Investigators have claimed that roots tend to decrease the diges- 
tibility of the albuminoids of the coarse fodders. The experiment 
was planned specially to test the correctness of this claim. | 
Animal.—Grade Holstein heifer, Star, 2 years old, used in the 
4 feeding experiment, Lot II. 
_ Food.— Hay from the same lot as in Experiment II, and turnips 
in moderate quantity at noon. 
