THE NEW EARTH 



one of the curses of farming in America. It is 

 one of the objects of these feeding experiments 

 to put a stop to this waste by showing that 

 better results can be reached under new meth- 

 ods by a far less expenditure of money. I 

 know of no way in which the practical value 

 of modern science, I had almost said modern 

 sensible science, for there is a so-called science 

 which busies itself with things which are only 

 mildly mystical, can better be shown than 

 in these great animal-feeding tests which have 

 been undertaken in the latter part of this past 

 generation. Take, for example, as an illustra- 

 tion of the scope of the work, the tests under 

 way by the national government in the feeding 

 of horses. Here it has been demonstrated, after 

 exhaustive tests, precisely how much of a given 

 food is assimilated by a horse, how much is 

 wasted, how to combine rations so that this 

 waste may be reduced to a minimum and the 

 horse be fed in the most economical manner. 

 It is shown that only thirty-four per cent of 

 the food consumed by a horse is converted 

 into energy or working power, while the 

 remaining sixty-six per cent is devoted to the 

 running of the horse, so to speak, to keeping 



214 



