Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


stituent from the entire ration. This may be a partial explana-
tion of the apparently low digestibility of the crude protein of
both Napier grass silage and Natal grass hay. However, in
actual practice, even as in the digestion trials, such feeds are
not relied upon as sources of digestible crude protein. The error
introduced on this account into the calculation of the total di-
gestible nutrient content of the feed is relatively small.
 Napier grass silage, harvested as the seed heads began to
 appear, was low in crude protein and high in crude fiber. A
 high fiber content is presumed to depress the digestibility of
 forages. This appears to have been the case in this instance
 as seen when the nutrient content of this Napier grass silage is
 compared with that of corn silage in Table 4, being most appar-
 ent when the nutrients are computed to a dry matter basis.
 Harvest of the C. intermedia was delayed in 1933 by heavy
 rains so that the crop became more fibrous than desired. The
 high fiber content of this plant at such a stage of maturity
 appears again to have depressed the digestibility of the nutri-
 ents, as seen in the comparison with soybean silage at the
 Florida station, and with alfalfa hay. In common with other
 legumes, it contained a considerable proportion of crude protein
 in the dry matter, as compared with grasses.
 Both C. intermedia silage cut at the same stage of growth,
 and hay cut more mature, proved unsatisfactory as sole feeds
 in earlier feeding trials. In another study, C. intermedia was
 ensiled at four different stages of maturity. Cattle refused only
 0.8 percent of that ensiled in the pre-bud stage, as compared
 with 33.2 percent of that ensiled in the early bloom stage. This
 plant increases quite rapidly in fiber content as it comes into
 bloom.
 Natal grass, of necessity, is harvested and cured into hay
at the close of the summer rainy season. Its habits of growth
are such that there are new blooms and a few mature seeds
on this plant in September. When cut at such a stage of ma-
turity, the fiber content is high, this usually being associated
with a depressed digestibility of the major nutrients. In this
instance the total digestible nutrients were only slightly below
those of timothy hay, while the digestible crude protein was
quite low.
 The dried grapefruit and orange cannery refuses were dis-
cussed in detail in Florida bulletin 275. It may be pointed out
that these were fully equal to dried beet pulp in total digestible
nutrients. Their content of digestible crude protein is negligible.