SOME EXPERIMENT STATION WORK RELATING TO THE 

 FOOD AND NUTRITION OE MAN. 



By H. D. MiLXEK. 

 Editorial Assistant, Nutrition Invcstiijatioms. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During a large part of their history the experiment stations in 

 general have been quite actively engaged in inquiries regarding the 

 composition of feeding stuffs and their appropriate use in the nutri- 

 tion of domestic animals. In more recent years some of the stations 

 have undertaken similar investigations on the food of man. The 

 problem of the nutrition of man has so much in common with that 

 of domestic animals that quite naturally the two have been studied 

 together, though until within a few years much more experimental 

 inquiry into the laws of nutrition was conducted with aninuils than 

 with num, partly because of the greater ease and convenience of 

 experimenting with animals and partly because of the especial activ- 

 ity of the experiment stations in this direction. During the past 

 decade, however, direct investigation of the food and nutrition of 

 marx has been increasingly active, and at the present time scientific 

 data regarding this subject and its application to the general health, 

 comfort, and well-being of mankind are being rapidly accunudated. 

 Very much of this is due to the cooperative nutrition investigations 

 of this Department, the object and nature of which are explained on 

 page 23. 



These investigations are carried on very largely in cooperation 

 with experiment stations in different sections of the country. Inde- 

 pendent of these cooperative investigations, however, different sta- 

 tions have conducted researches of a like or a similar character, which, 

 though not especially numerous in many individual cases, are of 

 much importance and in the aggregate contribute a considerable 

 amount of our general information regarding the food and nutrition 

 of man. For instance, numy of the stations have made chemical 

 analyses of the food products of the regions in which they are located, 

 and much of our present knowledge regarding the ccmiposition of 

 food materials is derived from such sources. So much information of 

 this kind is at present available that very little work of this character 

 H. Doc. 024, 5C^-1 15 225 



