COMPOSITION OF SOME HAWAIIAN FEEDING STUFFS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In animal life there is continual breaking down and consumption of 

 the substances of the bod}\ The mere performance of the body func- 

 tions, the act of living, results in the destruction of tissue. To 

 supply new material in the place of substances so used is one of the 

 chief functions of food. In addition, food furnishes the energy which 

 enables the animal to cany on its life processes and to perform its nec- 

 essar} T work, and in so doing maintains the heat of the body. When 

 growth is to be made or milk secreted more food is required than for 

 maintenance only. The scientific feeding of stock consists in supplying 

 food in the right proportion to meet the requirements of the animal 

 without waste of nutritive material. To so feed it is necessary, in the 

 first place, to know the requirements of the animal and the relative 

 nutritive value of different feeding stuffs. Feeding standards have 

 been devised on the basis of experience and experiments, which within 

 limits show kinds and amounts of nutritive material which the animal 

 requires, and such standards are expressed in chemical terms. It is 

 evident, therefore, that in a consideration of the kinds and amounts of 

 feeding stuffs required to meet the demands of the standards a knowl- 

 edge of their chemical composition is required. Thousands of analy- 

 ses of feeding stuffs have been reported by investigators in the 

 agricultural experiment stations and by others interested in the stud}^ 

 of feeding problems, and a great deal of information is readily acces- 

 sible regarding the composition of the forage crops, fresh and cured, 

 and the grains, seeds, and other concentrated feeds used in Europe and 

 America for feeding farm animals. 



Frequent requests for information regarding the composition of 

 Hawaiian-grown feeding stuffs have come to this station, including not 

 only the commonly cultivated plants, whose average composition is fairly 

 well known, but also many materials of which no analyses have been 

 available. With regard to the commonly cultivated plants of which 

 analyses are available, the question arose as to how far the average 

 analyses of plants grown elsewhere represent the composition of 

 Hawaiian-grown crops. In other words, it is desirable to know whether 

 our climate, soil, and methods of cultivation exercised any special effect 

 upon the composition of the crop. 



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