144 FEEDING ANIMALS 



nutritive ingredients in some of the most important stock 

 foods in that country. Most of these are also fed in this 

 country, and their figures, although not determined for 

 this country, will, at least, be interesting to our readers. 

 They figure the value of a food from the relative propor- 

 tion of the three classes of digestible matters it contains; 

 that is, the albuminoids, carbo-hydrates and fat. The 

 Germans base the value of a food, not upon the actual 

 amount of albuminoids, carbo-hydrates and fat it contains 

 on analysis, but on the amount of each, digestible; and 

 this is determined mostly by feeding experiments, but 

 partly by calculation. It is considered highly important 

 to know just the proportion that the digestible albumin- 

 oids bear to the digestible carbo-hydrates and this pro- 

 portion is called the nutritive ratio. 



As we have seen in a previous chapter, the composition 

 of animal bodies and vegetable bodies is the same. Every 

 element in animal bodies must be contained in the food 

 given. The albuminoids make the blood and tissues the 

 carbo-hydrates serve to keep up animal heat, and the sur- 

 plu-s goes to lay on fat. Animals require more of the one 

 or the other according to age and condition therefore a 

 knowledge of the composition of the different foods be- 

 comes of the highest importance to the successful feeder. 



The investigations in Germany have stimulated American 

 chemists to the analysis of American cattle foods, and within 

 the last decade very many careful analyses of our wild and 

 cultivated grasses and leguminous plants, as well as of our 

 grains and waste products of their manufacture, have been 

 made. 



Our Department of Agriculture has done much in this 

 field during the last few years. Yet it is but just to say 

 that the Connecticut Experiment Station lead off in the 

 effort to acquaint our farmers with the German work in 

 this field. 



