UNIVERSITY 



OF 



PRINCIPLES THAT GOVERN FEEDING 165 



body as given above. They are, therefore : ( I ) Nitrog- 

 enous organic substances; (2) non-nitrogenous organic 

 substances and (3) mineral or inorganic substances. Al- 

 bumen, the essential constituent of the white of egg, is an 

 example of a nitrogenous nutrient, starch of a non-nitrog- 

 enous nutrient, and common salt of a mineral or inorganic 

 nutrient. Nutrients are seldom found in an unmixed state, 

 but are generally combined in one fodder. 



Food factor or feeding stuff. The term food factor 

 or feeding stuff is any natural or artificial product used as 

 food for animals. Food factors usually contain two or 

 more nutrients intimately blended but in varying propor- 

 tions and also more. or less substance that is indigestible and 

 which, therefore, cannot be appropriated by the animal to 

 which the food is fed. Feeding stuffs may be roughly clas- 

 sified as nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous according as the or- 

 ganic nutrients are more largely of one kind or the other. 

 In nearly all instances they contain a sufficiency of mineral 

 nutrients, the exceptions being common salt and in some in- 

 stances ash and phosphate of lime. 



The principal nitrogenous constituents of feeding stuffs 

 are the albuminoids, as legumin, the nitrogenous constituent 

 of peas, beans and clover, and gluten, the nitrogenous 

 constituent of wheat. Likewise the nitrogenous substances 

 of the body consist largely of albuminoids. So in- 

 trinsically important are they, that all the manifestations of 

 animal life are dependent on them and on the organs which 

 are composed of them. They also furnish the materials 

 out of which the other important groups of nitrogenous 

 substances are formed; viz., the gelatinoids and the horny 

 matters. 



The albuminoids are found under various manifesta- 

 tions in all the organs and fluids of the healthy body except 

 the urine and they form the chief constituents of their com- 

 position. Nearly all the vital processes of the body have for 

 their object the effecting of changes upon the form, location 



