THE FEEDING VALUE OF BOOTS AND HAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 7

THE FEEDING VALUE OF BOOTS AND HAY.

It ia a well-known faofc that roots and grasses grown on different soi'lb are widely different in the matter of feeding value aa are tne soils on which they are grown. Even when subjected to chemical analysis, the composition of the different graßgea and roots may appear >to be identical, and yet the one sample may appear to be of imir'eneely 1 superior feeding value to the other. We are informed that the cause of this disparity between the feeding values of foods, which are so similar in chemical composition, has recently been closely investigated by two of the leoturers in the agricultural course at Edinburgh—viz., Profeßßor M'Alpine, botanioal adviser to thVHighland Sooiety, and Mr John Hunter, F,OS,, lecturer on agricultural chemistry. The investigations of these experimenters have gone to show that the lower feeding value of one sample of turnips, aa compared with another, is due in large measure to the fact that the cell walls are bard and woody, so that a considerable part of the albumen looked within them cannot be got at and assimilated by the digestive organs of tha animal. In the same way the higher feeding value of Borne samples of hay, as compare j with othera of an almost exactly similar analysis, is due to the formation in these samples of certain kinds of glycerides which can easily be detected by a chemical process, and may, under certain conditions, be very disadvantageous from a feeder's point of view. We are further informed that during the last session of the Edinburgh course these gentlemen shewed their s'udents how, by a microsoopical examination of eeckions of turnips, the relative feeding values of different samples could, be readily and aoourately determined. Stock feeders will wait with much interest for a fuller statement respecting the results so obtained, wbiob we are promised at an early date.