EXPERIMENTS WITH CHARCOAL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7930, 13 October 1911, Page 2

EXPERIMENTS WITH CHARCOAL

Charcoal tablets as a cure for indigestion have for many years been a common remedy. It has occurred to a farmer to find out what effect charcoal would have upon animals of normal digestion. Ito took for his first experiment eighteen gc-eso and as many ducks. Dividing them into flocks ho fed the first on ordinary food, the second had charcoal in small nieces, whore they could peck at it; while the third had powdered charcoal mixed in their food in the proportion of one part of charcoal to four of meal. Tbo ducks who, got no charcoal gained 533 grams in a month, the other two classes gained 906 and 962, there being little difference between them, though a gain of more than 50 per cent, over the ordinary feeding. But the __ geese showed startling results. . The gains in weight, for the • three classes . were i»6 grams, 6?7 and 1212! In other words, the geese which had a ration of powdered charcoal gained nearly seven times as much weight as those without it. These experiments are too few to revolutionise at one© the industry of fattening fowls and animals for the market; but no on© can predict what may not be learned from the hint they give.