6 EXPERIMENT STATION KECOHD, 



yet unrealized. ... As the demand for food grows more intense, 

 it will become increasingly important to so husband these by-products 

 and combine them into efficient rations, and to feed these rations 

 under such conditions and to such types of animals, as to save the 

 largest possil)le percentage of the energy Avhich they contain." 



This furnislies the germ of the new line of eft'ort. We are not only 

 far from utilizing the various by-products to the greatest advantage, 

 but we are feeding human food to live stock, and in this roundabout 

 conversion of grain into human food through the aninuil are follow- 

 ing a i)rocess demonstrated to be very w^asteful. Up to the present 

 time our experiments have aimed to show how grain might most 

 efficiently be converted into meat, rather than how much of it might 

 be saved for nuurs direct use; '"Ave shall soon have to reverse the 

 point of view," and this will call for a gradual revolution in agricul- 

 ture and ])articularly in the production of aninuil foods, requiring a 

 nuicli higher degree of skill in adapting means to ends than has been 

 necessary in the past. 



AVith resj^ect to their attitude toward the problem of the future 

 food supply, it was pointed out that the experiment stations must 

 take up in earnest the conservation rather than the exploitation of 

 food resources, and the agricultural colleges, while still teaching the 

 apjjroved ])ractices of the present, must as their chief aim seek to 

 equip their students with a sound knowledge of underlying facts and 

 laws, and thus prepare them to meet the changing conditions of the 

 future. Such an attitude toward the subject of animal husbandry 

 and such methods of teaching, it was suggested, will serve to impart 

 to it a higher pedagogic value than it generally has at present, and 

 will tend to make it a disciplinary as well as an infornuitional 

 subject. 



To prepare for the future, Dr. Armsby urged that there should be 

 " a far more extensive and pi'ofound study of the scientific princi])]es 

 of animal nutrition than has yet been nuide," and he presented the 

 reasons and need for such investigation with unusual clearness. He 

 said : 



" That he may utilize the materials of which I have been speaking 

 as completely as possible, the stockman needs to know in the first 

 place what proportion of the energy Avhich these various materials 

 contain it is possible or practicable to recover. This knowledge will 

 enable him to effect a Avise selection in the compounding of rations, 

 as well as have an influence upon the whole system of farming. In 

 the second place, he needs to know the relative efficiency of different 

 species, breeds, and types of animals as converters of energy, and how 

 their efficiency is influenced by their natural or artificial environment. 



