362 ‘BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
No. 17.— On the Fodder Value of Apples. By F. H. 
STORER, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. 
Tue precise significance of apples as food for animals does not 
appear to have been ever very clearly made out. Though eaten 
greedily by all kinds of cattle, this fruit is seldom given to them pur- 
posely, or.in a methodical way; and, although it often happens here 
in New England that horned cattle in particular have access to 
windfall apples in their pastures, in such wise that they actually con- 
sume very considerable quantities of them, there are comparatively 
few farmers who would deem it good practice to feed out apples to 
stock as they would feed pumpkins, or turnips and other roots. 
It is evident that a certain prejudice against the use of apples, as 
cattle food, prevails among farmers almost everywhere. Sometimes 
the objection is raised that there is “no nourishment in apples ;” at 
other times it is asserted that they are “too sour,” and that they will 
“dry off milch cows.” We sometimes hear that they are apt to choke 
the animals, and at others that the trouble of collecting them would 
be greater than their worth. Against the last four objections it might 
be urged, that there is manifestly no need of feeding out apples inju- 
diciously, and that we have daily evidence that cattle can eat moderate 
quantities of this fruit, even the sourest kinds, without injury to their 
health or their efficiency; that, as with turnips, the risk of choking 
may be avoided by either cutting, crushing, or cooking the fruit before 
giving it to the animals; and that, in the case of windfalls, at least, 
the trouble of collecting the apples would be partly offset by the fact 
that the process could be made to serve, incidentally, as a means of 
destroying the grubs in the apples, which have caused them to fall. 
As for the question, How much nourishment the apples really con- 
tain? that can only be answered by way of analysis, and by careful 
and judicious experiments in feeding animals. But, as will appear 
below, the composition of apples is so little like that of the roots and 
herbs ordinarily used as fodder that it was really no easy matter to 
try conclusive experiments with them before this composition had been 
found out. In the absence of any just knowledge of the constituents 
of a given fodder, it is, of course, difficult to determine what kinds of 
