84 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. | 
TABLE 12.—( Continued. ) 


No oF | Nitrogen- 








Kinp oF FEEDING STUFFS. Trials Protein. Pato oye Fiber. 
; | Extract. 
Cured Fodders. Per Cent. | Per Cent. | Per Cent. | Per Ct. 
( Continued.) | 
+ Orchard grass, - - : se YSQUM Sie AGB: tee nie 61 
* Kentucky blue grass, - - 'Assumed) as red- top. 
+ Hay (mixed grasses), - - 20 58 Fela Ray i -¥ 60 
Oat Hayy eas - - - iipas ie 5 Fe OTCR meee 44 
+ Hungarian, - : - - 20 NE OO OAie ec eae 68 
+ Corn stover, - - - 8 45 G2 eC mk 67 
Milling and By-Products. | 
+ Corn meal, - : : - 5 60 eh ha Sea ae 58 
Hominy chop,” - - - Assumed] as corn meal. 
* Storrs Station. + Hatch (Mass.) Experiment Station. { German, 
In the preceding table are given average digestion factors 
obtained mainly from American digestion experiments. The’ 
figures indicate the percentages of the various nutrients, pro- 
tein, fat, etc., which are actually digested by the animals. 
Many of these are the results of our own digestion experi- 
ments with sheep, which will be found summarized in the 
Report of this Station for 1896, others are from a compilation 
of American digestion experiments by Dr. J. B. Lindsey,$ 
while a few are from German, experiments. || 
IS THE QUANTITY OF DIGESTIBLE NUTRIENTS A TRUE MEASURE 
OF FEEDING VALUE? 
It has been very frequently assumed that the same kinds and 
amounts of digestible nutrients have the same value whatever 
their source. This would mean, for instance, that a pound of 
digestible protein or carbohydrates from oat straw or corn stover 
would have the same nutritive value as a pound of digestible pro- 
tein from corn meal or gluten meal. Practical feeders, on the 
other hand, have always questioned this theory. Late research 
is helping to clear up the matter by showing that a considerable 
amount of the nutriment in food is used by the body in the 
labor of digestion, and that the quantity of material needed to 
prepare the coarse fodders for use in the body is much larger 
than with the concentrated fodders. The larger the amount of 
2 Hatch (Mass.) Experiment Station, Report 1896. 
| See Report of this Sation, 1893, pp. 156-167, and compilation by Prof. W. H. Jor- 
dan, U. S. Dept. Agr., Experiment Station Record, Vol. VI. (1894, 1895), pp. 5-8. 

