
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 9 
four to twelve days. All the fodder of each kind fed the cows 
during the period and the milk given by each cow was weighed. 
Samples of the feeding stuffs were taken and sent to the Station 
for analysis, and the amount of fat in the milk was ascertained 
by the Babcock test on the ground. ‘The results of these 
observations accord with and confirm still more strongly the 
doctrine which the Station has maintained —that most Con- 
necticut farmers feed too wide a ration to their cows; that is, 
the feeding stuffs contain relatively too little nitrogenous 
matter. 
It is worthy of note, however, that one of the farmers visited 
this year was feeding a ration as high in protein as that pro- 
posed by the Station and even higher, yet when this :ration 
was made still more nitrogenous, the result, so far as the short 
experiment indicated, was pecuniarily profitable. 
Such information as is obtained in these experiments has an 
especial value to other farmers; being the fruit of the actual 
experience of one of their fellow-workers, it has a meaning for 
them which it would not have if it came only from the Station. 
At the same time the Station experimenters reap a benefit from 
the direct work with the farmer, in that they learn better what 
are his wants and how to meet them. This cooperation be- 
tween the Station and the practical farmer is a means of 
making direct practical application of the results of scientific 
research; it brings new information, and it is one of the most 
effective means for the dissemination of knowledge. Thus, in 
a three-fold way, it benefits the public, which the Station is 
endeavoring to serve. 
The digestion experiments with sheep are similar to those pre- 
viously reported. Their object is to learn what proportions of 
the nutritive ingredients of different feeding stuffs are actually 
digestible. As the results of such experimenting in Europe 
and in this country accumulate it becomes more and more 
probable that the different ruminants, as cows, oxen, sheep, 
and goats, digest very nearly the same amounts of protein, 
carbohydrates, and other nutritive ingredients from the same 
kinds of feeding stuffs. Hence the experiments on the diges- 
tion of different materials by sheep may be taken as an approx- 
imate measure of the digestibility of the same materials by 
milch cows. ‘The greater convenience of handling sheep in _ 
