BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 269 
to make the rather broad statement that “apples are much used in 
some parts of the United States for feeding milk-cows and pigs, and 
are reckoned about equal to their own weight of potatoes.” 
In the light of the analyses, above recorded, it seems hardly proba- 
ble that the mixed ration of corn meal and apples, or of “cob meal” 
and apples, described in the statements just referred to, is a specially 
judicious one, though it has probably been employed in this country 
more frequently than any other by experimenters on apples, and may 
be regarded in some sense as the basis upon which existing opinions 
as to the fodder value of this fruit. mainly rest. 
With regard to the comparative fodder value of apples and pota- 
toes, that can only be determined by competitive trials, in which each 
of these kinds of foods is supplemented by other kinds that are compe- 
tent to supply the constituents which are lacking in the apples or in 
the potatoes, as the case may be. From the analyses it would appear 
that there is actually less food in a pound of apples than in a pound of 
potatoes. The carbohydrates of the potato, moreover, consist largely 
of starch, which is a food of approved value. The significance of starch 
is so well understood almost everywhere at the present time, that its 
merits are no longer liable to be seriously called in question. But while 
it is true that the functions and value of starch are known more pre- 
cisely than those of any of the constituents of the apple, excepting the 
sugar and fat, it would be wrong to suppose that apples can have 
no value as fodder because they contain little or no starch; for the 
pectose, pectin, and allied matters that constitute a large proportion 
of the carbohydrates of the apple are unquestionably useful forms of 
food when used judiciously, as well as the sugar that is contained to 
the extent of from 7 to 9% in apple juice.* It is a matter of the 
commonest experience that pumpkins and turnips and other roots, 
which contain much pectose, are to be classed as highly valuable forms 
of fodder; and it has been shown by the experiment of Grouven,f 
that pectin, which had been prepared for the purpose, and adminis- 
tered as such, was completely and rapidly digested by oxen. 
In so far as concerns the amounts of starch, pectose, and pectin, 
* As determined by Wolff, “ Henneberg & Kraut’s Jahresbericht fiir 1855 
und 1856,” p. 178; and by Fresenius “ Annalen Chemie und Pharmacie,” 1857, 
101. 232. 
+t Hoffmann’s “Jahresbericht der Agrikultur-Chemie,” 1864, 7, 301. 
VOL. I. 47 
