THE EXPERIMENT STATION. 



139 



Wheat Screenings. 



The value of immature grains, screenings, etc., does not seem to be prop- 

 erly recognized. Shrunken and imperfect grains that give little promise 

 of valuable results in milling, are usually regarded as equally valueless for cat- 

 tle food. The nitrogenous portions of food are the most costly and most valu- 

 able in animal food. Their most valuable quality, aside from direct food value, 

 is the fact that they enable the animal to digest and assimilate a larger 

 amount of the coarser carbonaceous foods that would fail to be appropriated 

 by the animal in the absence of a sufficient supply of nitrogenous food or 

 albuminoids. 



In an extended investigation into the composition of wheat cut at differ- 

 ent periods of ripening, made in this laboratory in 1880, published in the 

 report of the State Board of Agriculture in 1881 and in volume IX. of the 

 census of the United States for 1880, it was shown that the relative propor- 

 tion of nitrogenous materials in wheat was much larger in the early period 

 of growth of the kernel, and rapidly fell off as the period of complete ripen- 

 ing came forward. A part of this nitrogenous material was in the form of 

 amides, the food value of which is not well settled, though all writers con- 

 cede that they are valuable ; still the value of a given weight of such imma- 

 ture grain as compared with the same weight of the same grain at complete 

 ripening was much larger. 



Mr. Gr. S. Pearson, of Kalamazoo, sent two samples of wheat screenings to be 

 analyzed in order to determine their value for stock food. The screenings 

 consisted largely of shrunken and immature grains of wheat, some broken 

 kernels, chess, seeds of weeds, chaff, etc. 



Analysis of Wheat Screenings. 



Wheat Bran, Etc. 



Specimens of feeding stuff were received from Geo. L. Sheldon, of Climax, 

 for analysis. No. 1 was described as " a sample of bran, or rather it is the 

 germ of the wheat separated from the rest, and reground." No. 2 is wheat 

 bran. Mr. Sheldon says No. 1 is " generally run into coarse middlings, and 

 sold as such. Almost any roller mill can separate it out. I can buy it for 



