dried, and on being submitted
to analysis yielded six per cent. of sugar. The addition of a small
quantity of malt to barley undergoing the process of cooking will
rapidly convert the starch into sugar.

Barley is naturally a well-flavored grain, and all kinds of stock eat
it with avidity. It may be rendered still more agreeable if properly
cooked, and this process will, by disintegrating its hard, fibrous
structure, set free its stores of nutriment. I incline strongly to
the opinion that barley, when well boiled, is almost, if not quite,
as digestible as malt.

A serious disadvantage in the use of malt is, that it must be consumed,
it is said, in combination with 10 per cent. of its weight of linseed-meal
or cake. Now, malt is a very laxative food, and so is linseed; and if
the diet of stock were largely made up of these articles the animals
would, sooner or later, suffer from diarrhoea. In such case, then,
the addition of bean-meal, or of some other binding food, would become
necessary, and the compound of malt, linseed, and bean-meal thereby
formed would certainly prove anything but an economical diet.

_Malt Combs._--I should mention that a portion of the nutriment which
the barley loses in malting passes into the radicles, or young roots,
which project from the seeds, and are technically known by the term
"combs," "combings," or "dust." At present these combs are separated
from the malt, but if the latter be intended for feeding purposes this
separation is unnecessary, and in such case the barley will not be so
much deteriorated. The combs, which constitute about 4 per cent. of the
weight of the malt, are sometimes employed as a feeding stuff. I have
made an analysis of malt-combings for the County of Kildare Agricultural
Society, and have obtained the following results:--

100 PARTS CONTAINED--

Water 8.42
[*] Flesh-forming (albuminous) substances 21.50
Digestible fat-forming substances (starch, sugar,
gum, &c.) 53.47
Indigestible woody fibre 8.57
[+] Saline matter (ash) 8.04
------
100.00

[* Yielding nitrogen 3.44]
[+ Containing potash