32 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



ECONOMICAL FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 

 By Dr. H. P. MieeER, Sunbury, Ohio. 



The economical feeding of animals involves the consideration 

 of several factors ; the animal, the conditions under which it is 

 fed, the purpose for which it is fed, and the feed. The first two 

 factors can only here be mentioned. The second depends upon 

 the fact that the tissues and other animal products desired from 

 the feeding of animals call for different substances, called 

 nutritive elements. A nutritive element is a substance which 

 furnishes, upon being consumed by an animal, the material for 

 the production of one or more of the things desired, as muscular 

 tissue, fatty tissue, milk, or some other animal product. The 

 explanation of why our fathers and many of us have fed ani- 

 mals with some degree of profit without understanding how 

 foods were utilized in the body, or anything regarding the selec- 

 tion of suitable feeds, depends upon the fact that all of the 

 feeding stuffs ever utilized contain some of all of the nutritive 

 elements required. The necessity for a more careful study of 

 the feeding problejTi depends upon the fact that very few of the 

 feeding stuffs contain the nutritive elements in the right relative 

 amounts for best results ; and also upon the fact that animals fed 

 for different purposes require different amounts and different 

 proportions of these nutritive elements. 



Now to explain what is meant by a nutritive element ; call 

 to mind that you have sometime taken a small handful of 

 wheat, placing it in the mouth to chew. After the wheat grains 

 are ground and mixed with saliva, the quantity diminishes and 

 the consistency changes. What has actually taken place is that 

 the starch grains of the wheat have been dissolved by the saliva 

 and swallowed with it. The somewhat pasty, tenacious mass that 

 remains in the mouth and does not dissolve or disappear no 

 matter how long it is mixed with the saliva is the gluten of the 

 wheat grain, being a different chemical substance and producing 

 different elements in the animal body when eaten. Now. to 

 understand the use of these nutritive elements still farther, I 

 will cite that the chemist makes a further separation of the 



