820 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 75 



greater efficiency of our workmen to this 

 difference in diet. This abundant meat 

 supply has been drawn especially from the 

 vast corn fields of the Mississippi valley. 

 Not only have our by-products gone to 

 waste, but material available as human 

 food has been converted into meat and 

 milk. While this concentration of grain 

 into higher priced and more marketable 

 products has been in the past and to a de- 

 gree still is entirely justified economically, 

 nevertheless, the conversion of corn, or of 

 any food grain, into meat is an exceed- 

 ingly wasteful process. Jordan^ computes 

 that in the production of beef or mutton 

 only about 2| per cent, of the digestible 

 organic matter consumed by the animal is 

 recovered as human food in the edible por- 

 tion of the carcass, while even in pork pro- 

 duction this percentage rises to only about 

 15|- per cent. Facts like these make 

 it evident that we can not continue in- 

 definitely to use edible grains as stock 

 food— to take the children's bread and 

 cast it to the beasts. The waste of energy 

 in the transformation is too great. Nor 

 is it any answer to say that wheat and 

 not corn is the bread grain of the west- 

 ern world. The irresistible economic pres- 

 sure of population will sooner or later 

 compel us either to use corn as human 

 food or to utilize the land now devoted 

 to corn culture for other crops which 

 shall yield more available nutriment, while 

 the stockman will be forced to iitilize by- 

 product feeds to the utmost, not simply as 

 a means of continuing meat as a promi- 

 nent ingredient of our diet nor of provid- 

 ing animal foods as luxuries for the tables 

 of the wealthy, but primarily as a means 

 of conserving energy for human use. The 

 feeder of the future vnll utilize by-product 

 feeds to an extent as yet unrealized. He 

 will pass in review the crude products of 

 ' " The Feeding of Animals," 5th edition, p. 405. 



the farm, and all the hundred and one 

 wastes of manufacturing operations, to see 

 if perchance they still contain energy 

 which he can extract. Like the miner, he 

 will be ready to work low-grade ore, pro- 

 vided there is a sufficient margin of profit. 

 Even the small amounts of available 

 energy contained in such feeds as oat hulls, 

 corn cobs and the like will be utilized and 

 their waste energy saved as rapidly and as 

 far as economic conditions render profit- 

 able, and to aid in rendering this possible 

 is to render service to mankind. 



It must be clearly understood, however, 

 that this desirable end is not to be attained 

 by any species of pious fraud. The manu- 

 facturers of mixed feeds are of late making 

 much of the importance of by-product ma- 

 terials, a most sound proposition in itself, 

 but one which hardly justifies all the corol- 

 laries which some of them appear to draw 

 from it. That corn cobs, for example, con- 

 tain a certain small amount of available 

 energy does not render it an act of benevo- 

 lence to induce the farmer to feed them, as 

 Mike wanted his whiskey supplied, "un- 

 beknownst," in some mixed feed with a 

 high-sounding name or as an inconspicuous 

 admixture to some well-known material. 

 Such surreptitious kindness is in danger, 

 in the long run, of recoiling upon its au- 

 thor. We shall not effect the needed econo- 

 mies of the future by coaxing or beguil- 

 ing the feeder into utilizing these low-grade 

 materials as ingredients of patent feeds or 

 pre-digested mixtures or ready-balanced 

 rations, but by teaching him their true 

 value and educating him to make his own 

 mixtures and balance his own rations. 

 Personally, I am opposed on principle to 

 mixed feeds, as I am to mixed fertilizers, 

 not because many of them are not good of 

 their kind, but for the reason that they 

 minimize the intelligence of the farmer 

 while they open a wide door for fraud on 



