360 



REPOET OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



the work was later assigned to the Office of Experiment Stations. 

 From the first the plan of cooperation with experiment stations, 

 agricultural colleges, and other educational institutions and with 

 philanthropic associations was followed in the belief that such a course, 

 in which each party was a contributor, would yield the most satis- 

 factory returns for a given investment. The sums which have been 

 appropriated by Congress for the nutrition investigations of the 

 Department of Agriculture have been since the beginning as follows : 



Appropriations for nutrition investigations. 



These amounts have been increased by contributions from other 

 sources, some of which are not easily estimated in terms of money, 

 since they consist in large part of the use of laboratories, apparatus, 

 chemicals, and other facilities for research, the counsel and help of 

 experts, and similar services. Some of the States, notably Connecticut 

 and Illinois, have made special appropriations for the study of prob- 

 lems relating to the food and nutrition of man, and a considerable 

 number of the experiment stations, educational institutions, philan- 

 thropic associations, and private individuals have donated sums of 

 money to promote cooperative research. 



Until ill health prevented. Prof. W. O. Atwater was the chief of the 

 nutrition investigations and was responsible for the plans and general 

 oversight of the work. A large amount of experimental work was also 

 carried on under his immediate supervision in Professor Atwater's 

 laboratory in the chemical department of Wesleyan University, the 

 Connecticut (Storrs) Experiment Station being a generous contributor 

 to the enterprise. As time progressed and the correspondence and 

 other business arrangements connected with the nutrition investiga- 

 tions developed, it became evident that the enterprise as a whole should 

 be centered in Washington, and at the beginning of the fiscal year 

 1906-7 a division of nutrition investigations was established in the 

 Office of Experiment Stations. 



SCOPE OF THE WORK. 



In the earlier years of the nutrition investigations many analyses of 

 American food materials were made, as the data regarding the chem- 

 ical composition of such food materials were comparatively limited. 

 Information along this line has, however, accumulated very rapidly 



