RECENT AMERICAN WORK ON FEEDING STUFFS. 519 



have been present if the meals were originally of normal (juality. To 

 determine whether the growth of mold was the real cause of the 

 dimiiiished fat content, samples of normal corn meal of known com- 

 position were inoculated with P. glaucum and the mold allowed to 

 grow for nine days at an average of 71° F., under ditferent conditions 

 as regards moisture. The percentage loss of fat was found to range 

 from 1.35 to 12.24. the .smallest loss being found in the sample in 

 which there was 10.73 per cent of water present and greatest in 

 the sample having the largest amount of water, viz, 36.24 per cent. 

 In other words, this percentage loss of fat increases with the amount 

 of moisture present. Other tests are very briefly reported, which 

 bear out this opinion. 



E. B. Hart and W. 11. Andrews '* studied the form in which phos- 

 phorus occurs in feeding stuffs and animal by-products, reaching the 

 conclusion that in such materials practically all the phosphorus occurs 

 in organic compounds and that commercial feeding stuffs of vegetable 

 origin do not contain appreciable quantities of phosphorus in inorganic 

 compounds and, furthermore, that feeding stuffs of animal orgin, such 

 as liver meal and dried blood, are also approximatelj^ free from such 

 phosphorus compounds. 



The proportion of the energy of timothy hay available to the animal 

 body was studied by H. P. Armsby and J. A. Fries* at the Pennsyl- 

 vania Station with a respiration calorimeter of the Atwater-Rosa 

 type, which has been elaborated in cooperation with the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry of this Department. In determinations of the income 

 and outgo of energy in experiments with steers fed timothy ha}', the 

 following tentative conclusions weie drawn: 



The nutritive Aalue of timothy hay, either for maintenance or pro- 

 duction, was not measured in these experiments b}' its metaboliza])le 

 energy, but was in every case materially less. In other words, the 

 digestible nutrients of the timothy hay did not replace body tissue in 

 isodynamic proportions. 



The work of digestion and assimilation in the case of timothy ha}' 

 appears to be so great that, at the maintenance requirement or even 

 l)elow it, the heat production of the animal is in excess of the amount 

 needed for the maintenance of body temperature. 



The availability of the metabolizable energy of timothy hay, within 

 the range of these experiments, appears to be a linear function of its 

 amount. 'I'he experihients afford no clear indication that the avail- 

 ability is less above the maintenance requirements than Ik^Iow it. (See 

 also p. 53.5.) 



M<'ntion should be made of the extended compilation of data regard- 

 ing the feeding value of sugar l)eetsand sugar-beet products, published 



" Ni'w Y(.rk State Sta. Bui. 238. 



''True. Soc. I'n.iii. V^r. Sci., 1902, \k IKI. 



