188 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
HXPERIMENTS HERE REPORTED. 
From experiments made elsewhere it has been found that 
differences due to age, breed and species of ruminants are 
slight. The digestibility of a feed by a sheep can be taken as 
a tolerably correct measure of its digestibility by a cow or 
steer. As sheep are easier to experiment with than the larger 
animals, and as many of the feeding experiments by the 
Station are with sheep, they have been employed in the 
digestion experiments which are here reported upon. — 
The pens for the animals are similar to those devised by the 
Maine Experiment Q§tation** except that the partitions and 
sides were made of half-inch iron pipe. The pen for each 
animal is about five feet square and has at one side a narrow 
stall in which the sheep is confined during the part of the 
experiment in which the feces are collected. ‘The mangers | 
are arranged so as to prevent loss of food by scattering. The 
rubber-lined bags for collecting the feces and the harness used 
to hold them in place are quite similar to those used by the 
Maine Station. 
Each experiment iste twelve days. ‘The first seven days 
were given to preliminary feeding, during which the feces 
were not collected and each animal had the run of its pen. At 
the end of the first seven days the sheep were placed in the 
narrow stall and the rubber-lined bags for collecting the feces 
were attached. ‘The whole of the feces was collected during 
the last five days of the experiment, and was removed twice 
daily from the bags and placed in the drying apparatus. Each 
half-day’s portion of the feces was dried by itself, put in a 
glass jar and sent to the laboratory for analysis. 
In connection with the digestion experiments with sheep, 
the heats of combustion of the feeding stuffs and feces were 
determined by use of the bomb calorimeter, with the purpose 
of getting light upon the potential energy or fuel value of the 
digested material. 
Table 66, which immediately follows, gives a summary of 
the results of all the digestion experiments with sheep made 
by the Station. Experiments Nos. 1-9 were reported in the 
Annual Report of the Station for 1894. The detailed account 
of the other experiments (Nos. 10-27) will be found on pages 
197-214, beyond. 

*See Report of this Station, 1894, pp. 123, 124. 
et ws 
