An Improved Process and Apparatus for Preparing or Producing a Fodder Material.
Year: 1894

page_text: Date of Application, 27th Dec., 1894-Accepted, 23rd Feb., 1895
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Process and Apparatus for Preparing or Producing a
Fodder Material.
A communication by GEORG BENEDICT RITTER VON POSCHINGER, of Schloss
Frauenau, near Zwiesel, Lower Bavaria, in the Empue of Germany, Landed
Proprietor, Wholesale Manufacture, and Hereditary Senator of the Bavarian
Kingdom.
I, WILLIAM PHILLIPS THOMPSON F.C.S. M.I.M.E. of The Agency for
Foreign Patent Solicitors 6, Lord Street, Liverpool and 6, Bank Street
Manchester both in the County of Lancaster and 31, High Holborn in the
County of Middlesex Civil Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and- ascertained in and by the following statement.-
The fodder material hereinafter described may be obtained everywhere and at
any season of the year, and may be used as a food for any herbivorous animals,
mammalia, birds, or plant-cating fishes.
This improved fodder material is obtained from all living phanetogamic as well
as cryptogamic plants and their parts.
The tougher (harder) parts, such, for instance, as the stalks and thicker branches,
me treated on the machine heremafter more particularly described, and the product
18 passed though a suitable flat or cylindrical sifting apparatus, the finer
particles are used for fodder, whilst the coarser ones are ground in grinding or
crushing mills until a suitable fineness of grain or meal is obtained. The gunding
or crushing mills may be provided either with horizontal travelling stones like the
ordinary corn mills or with olleis or vertical crushers of steel, cast iron, etcetera,
like the ordinary crushing mills. Of course any other suitable apparatus used for
subdividing purposes may be employed.
The smaller vegetables (plants) or parts of the same, such as branches, twigs,
buds or leaves, whether thoroughly dried or in a natural condition containing thon
usual amount of water, may be ground in gimding or crushing mills to the
requisite degree of fineness of the meal. These plants are previously subdivided
as finely as possible, either by means of chaff cutteis of any kind, or by means of
primitive but suitable implements and machines such, for instance, as hatchets or
bills, saws and the like. The drying of these small pieces may take place either
before or after they aro cut up on the various chaffing machines, previous to the
grinding, but drying may be entirely dispensed with in the case of many materials.
All kinds of plants and their parts are suitable for making this feeding material,
whether such plants are in a fresh or partially withered condition.
Plants which have commenced to decompose may also be employed as above
described, mainly by intense drying, which thus causes a destruction of the ferments.
The lower plants, such as alge, fungi, lichens, mosses, etcetera, some of which are
very rich in mitogenous and nou-nitiogenous strong nutritive elements, are particu-
larly suitable Fungi, for instance, are very suitable, especially when in a condition
of decomposition no longer suitable for human consumption, after all deleterious

page_text: matte's have been destroyed generally by heating to 100 degrees Centigrade, and
by extracting, in another way, such substances as withstand this temperature, by
meaus of alcohol, or other substance which dissolves them.
This fodder material, owing to its beng made of materials of small value and at
any season of the year, may not only be employed at a time of scarcity of folder
to replace forage and gram fodder, but also, on account of its excellent nutritive
value and its corresponding effect on the condition and capability of working of
the animals, it may be employed in future as the main fodder in addition to the
hay for ruminants, and to the corn or other fodder for horses, pigs, poultry, dogs,
and in fact all domestic animals, and also all wild animals and birds.
The fodder material obtamed in this manner corresponds in every way to the
requirements of such an article; cows fed on this unproved fodder yield an increase
of milk equal to more than 25 per cent. Draught oxen and other cloven-footed
beasts do not ruminate for so long a time as was previously the case, and are
therefore able to do more work under the yoke, whilst the condition of nutrition
or the animals is in no way deteriorated by the change of fodder necessitated by the
substitution of the improved fodder hei embefore described for the forage and
stronger food hitherto employed.
This improved fodder material may, in addition, not only be employed by itself
but also mixed with any other suitable fodder material, more especially with meal
and the like.
The 'mixture of this improved fodder with other food stuffs may be done in any
suitable proportious, the materials which are to be mixed being capable of being
employed the form of a coaise or fine powder or meal
Such mixtures of food
stuffs may then be baked, with the admixture, if desned, of leaven, into leavened
or even unleavened bread. It can thus be made into ordinary bread, cakes or even
biscuit, and as such introduced commercially.
Any suitable apparatus or implement may be employed for the disintegration,
mentioned at the commencement of this Specification, of the harder parts of the
plants, such as stems, twigs, etcetera but the apparatus shown in the accompanying
drawing is preferably employed.
In this drawing,
Figure 118 a side elevation,
Figure 2 a cross section of a modification of same.
This apparatus consists of a horizontal shaft of suitable length arranged on a
suitable stand a. Said shaft carries, at suitable distances apart, diuma c and
these latter are fitted with rasps or abrasive surfaces against which the material,
which is to be treated, is carried and held by means of a suitable device. On the
rotation of the shaft, the wood cells are toin open and shredded by the rasps, so
that a soft, light product results, which may be employed or treated in the manuet
here before describied.
Instead of a single shaft, two or more such may be arranged one behind the
other as shown in Figure 2 of the drawing on a single stand.
Instead of horizontal
shafts, one or more vertical spindles, standing side by side, may preferably be
employed, each of which spindles may be provided with a rasping drum, and which
are preferably driven from a common driving mechanism
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said invent-
tion and in what manuer the same is to be performed as communicated to me
by my foreign corespondent, I declare that what I claim is
1. An improved process for preparing or producing a fodder material consisting
in reducing to meal living plants of all kinds m a fresh or died condition, which
material may then be used as fodder either alone or mixed with other suitable
fodder materials, or even if desired be baked into bicad, substantially as described.
2. An improved apparatus for carrying out the process descubed in Claim 1,
for reducing to meal the tough woody parts of the plants, consisting in an

page_text: arrangement of several revolving diums (c) provided with lasps or abrasive
surfaces against which the material to be treated is conveyed and held substantially
as described and illustrated.
Dated this 24th day of December 1894.
WM. P. THOMPSON & Co.,
Agents