ANIMAL GROWTH AND NUTRITION. 229 



ated more food, and, in all probability, more of the carbohy- 

 drates. Our soil and climate are different ; and consequently 

 our herbage, as climate and soil affect herbage, is different, 

 These facts will be seen very prominently, if comparison is 

 made with the hays analyzed thus far in this country. Tim- 

 othy, in nine analyses, shows six and sixteen-hundredths per 

 cent of albuminoids ; while nine and seven-tenths per cent is 

 the reported average by German tables, ours being richer 

 in carbohydrates than theirs. Our climate is colder, and 

 the humidity of our atmosphere unlike theirs. The authori- 

 ties quoted here have been those who have favored the view 

 that albuminoids are the source of fat, force, and flesh ; and 

 these views color their conclusions, — at least this appears in 

 much of their work. Hence we have tables of food-values 

 based on four cents and a third as the value of a pound 

 of digestible albuminoids, while nine-tenths of a cent per 

 pound is their rated value for a pound of digestible carbo- 

 hydrates. 



I do not wish to enter into detailed statements, to show 

 that facts for Germany may not be applicable to America, 

 but merely to suggest that some American review of their 

 work is called for. Their tables of food-values, based upon 

 the prices named, are mischievous in their workings here ; 

 for I find, following the advice of prudent men, so esteemed, 

 many farmers are rating foods of the market on these tables. 

 The samples of cotton-seed meal that have come into my 

 hands contained a greater value of digestible albuminoids, on 

 their basis, than the cost of the meal ; so that the other con- 

 stituents go for nothing. They (the Germans) have cotton- 

 seed meal rated at three dollars and sixty cents per hundred 

 pounds, hay being rated at a dollar per hundred pounds ; yet 

 cotton-seed meal can be bought for less than one-half this 

 amount. This is an extreme case, but will serve to show 

 the fallacy of the basis. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, in their 

 celebrated feeding-trials, came to a conclusion opposite those 

 of the Germans, — that the value of a food is measured more 

 by its resource of available carbohydrates for the very simple 

 and common-sense reason, that in English markets foods were 

 easier obtained that were rich in albuminoids than those rich 

 in carbohj'drates. I think I can show, from five years of 

 exact weighings, that it is easier and cheaper to get growing 



