





£". G. Ritzman, with cattle, circa 1918 



Animal nutrition research in the 

 department began before 1920 as a 

 cooperative war emergency project 

 with F. G. Benedict, Director of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory, the Carnegie 

 Institution. Benedict designed and 

 Ritzman constructed an inexpensive 

 respiration chamber (calorimeter) for 

 large domestic animals. This appara- 

 tus, intended for short-term experi- 

 ments, allowed determination of car- 

 bon dioxide production, a measure of 

 basal metabolism. Using this equip- 

 ment, comparative studies with sheep, 

 goats, horses, swine, beef cattle and 

 dairy cattle showed, for example, that 

 energy expenditure of dairy cows was 

 25 percent greater than that of beef 

 cows and that the swine had a very low 

 basal metabolic rate. Season and ge- 

 netics clearly influenced the rate of 

 metabolism. 



In 1932 , Ritzman and N. F. Colovos 

 designed an apparatus which permit- 



ted automatic collection of solid and 

 liquid excreta from cows in digestion 

 experiments, equipment which then 

 made possible long-term experiments 

 and broader investigations on digest- 

 ibility of feedstuffs and development 

 of balanced rations for dairy cows. 



Station veterinarian, C. L. Martin, 

 in a program administered by the state 

 veterinarian's office, used the tube ag- 

 glutination, blood test followed by 

 slaughter of infected cattle to control 

 Bang's disease (contagious abortion]. 

 The number of positive animals in the 

 State became substantially reduced by 

 this procedure. 



J. C. McNutt succeeded O. L. 

 Eckman as head of Animal Husbandry 

 and served until 1930 when L. V. 

 Tirrell, who had served the University 

 from 1922 to 1926, returned to New 

 Hampshire and was appointed head of 

 the department. Tirrell was not a 

 member of the Station staff — his great 



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