EXPERIMENT STATION. T9 



or not these values are absolutely those of our markets, they 

 represent presumably the relative values of these elements approx- 

 imately, and we may provisionally employ them for the purpose 

 of comparing together our feeding stuffs in respect to money 

 value. 



These money or market values are to a degree independent of 

 the feeding values. That is, if of two kinds of food, for example, 

 Hungarian hay and malt sprouts, the one sums up a value of 66 

 cents, and the other a value of Si. 31 per hundred, it does not fol- 

 low that the latter is worth for all pvirposes of feeding twice as 

 . much as the former, but it is meant that when both are properly 

 used, one is worth twice as much money as the other. In fertili- 

 zers we estimate the nitrogen of ammonia salts at 22|^ cents per 

 pound, and soluble phosphoric acid at 121 cents, but this means 

 simply that these are equitable market prices for these articles, 

 not that nitrogen is worth twice as much as soluble phosphoric 

 acid for making crops. In the future more exact valuations may 

 be obtained from an extensive review of the resources of our mar- 

 kets, in connection with the results of analyses of the feed and 

 fodder consumed on our farms. 



The column headed '■^ nutritive ratio'''' in the table on page 81, 

 gives the proportion of digestible albuminoids to digestible carb- 

 hydrates inclusive of fat.* The albuminoids, which are repi-e- 

 sented in animal food by the casein or curd of milk, the white of 

 egg and lean meat, and in vegetable food by the gluten of wheat 

 (wheat gum), and other substances quite similar to milk-casein 

 and egg-albumin, have a different physiological significance from 

 the carbhydrates, which are fiber or cellulose, starch, the sugars, 

 the gums, and similarly constituted matters. 



The albuminoids may easily be made over by the animal into 

 its own substance, i. e., into muscles, tendons, and the various 

 working tissues and membranes which are necessary parts of the 

 animal machine, because they are the same kind of materials, are, 

 chemically speaking, of the same composition. 



The carbhydrates, on the other hand, probably cannot serve at 

 all for building up the muscles and other parts of the growing 

 anirnal, and cannot restore the waste and wear of those pai'ts of 

 mature animals, because they are of a very different nature. 

 They contain no nitrogen, an element which enters into all the 



* Fat and carbhydrates have, it is beUeved, nearly the same nutritive function, 

 and it is assumed that 1 part of fat equals 2.4 of carbhydrates. 



