AGRICULTURE: fJART, AND OTHERS 
381 
When a few years ago the corn crop of Nebraska failed to mature 
because of drought, but early rains had produced a bumper wheat crop 
it left many farmers with little to feed their breeding stock but wheat 
grain and certain roughages. In many cases where this was done the 
calves were born either dead or weak, with great financial losses to 
many breeders. No one would have suspected that the ration was a 
factor in these disasters, but it undoubtedly was the direct cause of the 
trouble. 
When Dakota farmers, with their only roughage as wheat straw, try 
to build up an animal husbandry industry there is likely to arise trouble 
in reproduction with this class of animals unless other roughages 
with better salt mixtures are brought into the ration. We are informed 
that there is already much trouble with reproduction by cows in the 
Dakotas wherever much wheat straw is fed. Such facts as these must 
emphasize the importance of an understanding of all the factors of ani- 
mal nutrition and in addition an understanding of all the factors con- 
tributed by any particular food-stuff. It should further emphasize how 
such studies can furnish the facts which will aid the animal feeder in 
avoiding the danger zones of his art. We need more effort placed on the 
accumulation of information on the physiological behavior of feeding stuffs 
than on the attempts to bring out new mathematical expressions of feeding 
standards. 
These experiments further show the limitations of the theory of a 
^balanced' ration as now expressed and indicate the very great impor- 
tance of other factors besides protein and energy in the successful diet. 
It was indeed surprising to find that the common wheat kernel had a 
low toxicity; but such factors as toxicity, growth promoting substances 
of unknown nature, proper balance of salts, indicate how complex the 
problems of animal nutrition really are and how necessary it is that 
these factors be clearly exposed in order that we may place the various 
feeds in their proper category. We have pointed out how a material of 
low toxicity, such as the wheat kernel, may be used with success. A 
good roughage hke a legume hay was an admirable 'antidote.' Even 
corn meal and a poorer roughage like corn stover served to offset the 
detrimental effects of a large mass of wheat embryo. This also illus- 
trates how an adjustment of the normal factors of nutrition may con- 
ceal the presence of the detrimental factors. 
It is important to keep constantly in mind that the disclosure of 
either a nutritive deficiency or the presence of an abnormal factor in a 
common natural food stuff should not necessarily condemn its use. It 
should, however, emphasize the need of combining it in the ration with 
