52 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
and a mental reservation must always be 
made on account of it. 
Several curious points of detail have been 
noticed in these researches. It appears, for 
example, that hard-boiled eggs are assimi¬ 
lated by healthy men just as completely as 
roast beef is; though it may none the less be 
true that the flesh is digested and assimilated 
in less time than the egg, and that the organs 
of digestion are put to less trouble in dealing 
with it. It has been shown also, by several 
different observers, that bread alone is an in¬ 
sufficient food. On a bread diet the body 
gives out each day more Nitrogen than is 
assimilated from the food, and the coarser 
the bread so much the worse for the con¬ 
sumer. It appeax-s from the table that milk 
is not so completely assimilated by adults as 
would have been supposed at first sight. 
Milk is distinctly inferior to beef and eggs, 
in this respect—and is even worse than some 
of the foods of vegetable origin. The reason 
of this peculiarity appears to depend in good 
part upon the large amount of ash-ingredients 
that are contained in milk, and which are 
not assimilated by the body. This remark 
applies particularly to Lime, which is abun¬ 
dant in milk, and which passes out from the 
body in the solid rather than in the liquid 
excrement. On leaving the ash-ingredients 
wholly out of the account, it appeared that 
the dry organic matter of milk was assimi¬ 
lated almost as well as that of flesh and eggs ; 
though the percentage waste of Nitrogen 
from milk is noticeably large—perhaps be¬ 
cause of the large amount of this element 
which is taken into the digestive tract when 
nothing but milk is eaten. There is, of course, 
a limit to the digestibility of every food, milk 
included. Speaking in general terms, how¬ 
ever, it is simply the ash-in’gredients in milk 
that are not needed by adults which are dis¬ 
carded. In harmony with this fact, it has 
been noticed that milk is assimilated more 
completely by children than by adults. 
The completeness of the assimilation of the 
“Carbohydrates,” that is to say, starch, from 
foods rich in this constituent, is specially re¬ 
markable. It appears that men are able to 
digest and absorb very large quantities of 
starch when it is presented to them in suit¬ 
able forms, as in rice, white bread, and mac- 
caroni; unless, indeed, a great deal of fat is 
eaten at the same time with the starch, in 
which event some of the latter is apt to es¬ 
cape digestion. In the case of potatoes, black 
bread, beets, and cabbage, on the other hand, 
the Carbohydrates are utilized much less com¬ 
pletely ; doubtless because they are of less 
digestible kinds in the vegetables, and also 
because each of the foods last mentioned 
produce large quantities of bulky, watery 
excrement which passes rapidly through the 
intestines, and carries with it much carbo¬ 
hydrate and other material, which would 
doubtless have been assimilated but for lack 
of time. Not only are the intestines over¬ 
burdened by these coarse foods, but the par¬ 
tially digested material is subject to fermen¬ 
tations which produce butyric and lactic 
acids, and a quantity of gases, all of which 
appear' to hasten the evacuation of the intes¬ 
tines, and consequently occasion less com¬ 
plete assimilation of the constituents of the 
food than would otherwise occur. Any solid, 
non-digestible substance added to food, such 
as bran, for example, or cellulose prepared 
from straw, makes the assimilation of the 
digestible constituents of the food less com¬ 
plete than it would be if the indigestible sub¬ 
stance were absent. Of a given amount of 
starch, that would be completely assimilated 
if eaten in the shape of rice, white bread, or 
maccaroni, no inconsiderable portion goes to 
waste if it be eaten in the form of black bread. 
In experiments where the diet consisted of 
beets alone, which were eaten, of course, in 
large quantities, the intestines were so over¬ 
loaded that excrement began to be discharged 
five or six hours after the first meal was 
eaten. 
Rice is assimilated pretty well, particularly 
as regards its starch (Carbohydrates). Indeed, 
in so far as dry substance goes, rice is assim¬ 
ilated as completely as flesh ; it is the nitro¬ 
genous constituents chiefly which fail to be 
absorbed. So too 'with Indian corn ; a good 
deal of its Nitrogen is not assimilated, while 
its Carbohydrates are pretty thoroughly ab¬ 
sorbed. With potatoes, also, a very consider¬ 
able part of the nitrogenous constituents are 
not assimilated, and the amount of excrement 
is large. Particularly large amounts of ex¬ 
crement were produced when the food con¬ 
sisted of beets or of cabbage. As the table 
shows, very considerable portions of these 
foods were not assimilated. As a general 
rule fat is assimilated well-nigh completely, 
even when eaten in large quantities, though 
exceptions to this rule occur, and are not al¬ 
ways easy to explain. The fat of Indian 
corn, for example, and that eaten with cab¬ 
bage appear to be less easily assimilated than 
some others. Butter is assimilated better 
than fat bacon, and the appearance of par¬ 
ticles of unchanged bacon in the excrement 
would seem to show that the cellular envel¬ 
opes of such fat hinder its digestion ; but fat 
from the marrow of bones, in spite of its 
cellular condition, is assimilated almost as 
completely as that in butter, though this fact 
may perhaps depend on the easier fluidity of 
the marrow fat, and it is possible withal that 
the cells of the marrow may be less tough 
than those of the bacon. 
As a matter of course, such researches as 
these tend to elucidate those which have re¬ 
lated solely to cattle; and they teach anew 
the lesson that to each kind of animal should 
be allotted the foods best suited to its special 
requirements, and to the organs of digestion 
peculiar to its species. They impress most 
forcibly upon the farmer, and upon every one 
who has to do with animals, the paramount 
importance of attending to the digestibility 
of foods. 
The Wheat Moth and its Work. 
BY PROF. A. J. COOK, LANSING, MICH. 
Mr. J. W. Curtis, of Kliger Lake, Mich., 
sends me some Wheat that is seriously in¬ 
jured by the Wheat Tinea (Tinea granella, 
Linn). He states that the wheat, stored in 
the wheat-house at the depot is being badly 
injured by this pest. Not long ago I received 
some wheat from a miller in Hillsdale Co., 
Mich., with the same complaint. 
Dr. Harris, in his admirable treatise, “In¬ 
sects Injurious to Vegetation,” page 496, des¬ 
cribes this pest so well that I will only briefly 
mention its peculiarities and appearance. 
The little moths that lay the eggs are like 
the common Clothes’ Moth, in fact they be¬ 
long to the same genus. Both species are 
small, less than one-half inch long, are buff 
colored, with a satin-like gloss to their wings, 
and both have their wings fringed with fine 
hair-like scales. The larvae (fig. 1) that bore 
into the wheat, and by eating the kernels do 
the very great mischief, are like the larvae of 
the Codling Moth, the Apple-worm which is 
so familiar to all, except that the Wheat 
Worm is a little more hairy. The larva, as it 
works, spins a sort of web which holds a 
number of the kernels of the grain in one 
mass. (This is shown by Harris in his Plate 
VII, fig. 7, as in fig. 2 below). Like the Clothes’ 
Moth, indeed like most all of our worst insect 
pests,the Grain Tinea is an imported insect. I 
have known of its committing injury several 
times before in our State, and in every case 
it remained but a little time and then disap¬ 
peared. I have supposed that our climate 
was probably too severe for 
the welfare of the insect, 
and so each time after its in¬ 
troduction it soon became 
extinct. It is to be hoped 
that my conjecture is right, and that the 
moths will continue with us but for a short 
time. This remark applies equally well to the 
little Wheat Weevil, which has appeared in 
our State several times, and soon disappeared 
without any treatment to drive it away. 
I know of but one efficient remedy for this 
insect, and that applies as well to the weevil 
and to the Angoumois Grain-moth, which is 
said to do no little damage in the southern 
and southwestern part of our counti'y. I 
have frequently seen every kernel of corn in 
samples from the Gulf States perforated by 
this latter moth-larva. The remedy proposed 
is Bisulphide of Carbon. We have only to 
pour a quantity of this into the bin at the 
bottom of the grain to kill all of the insects. 
It is very penetrating and volatile, and equal¬ 
ly deadly to all of the insect tribes. I think 
that a half pint of the 
liquid would destroy the 
insects in a bin of 50 to 
100 bushels of grain. Not 
having experimented with 
grain in such quantities I 
cannot give the precise 
quantities of the liquid to 
be used in different sized 2 .— cluster of 
, . „ . , , ,, . INFESTED GRAIN. 
bins of gram, but this can 
easily be determined by trial. To apply the 
remedy it is desirable to pour the liquid in at 
the bottom of the grain. To do this we can take 
a hollow iron cylinder—a gas-pipe will do well 
—and fit into it a wooden rod which shall be a 
little longer than the iron tube. One end of 
the rod is to be made sharp ; now place the 
rod inside the tube, and, with the sharp end 
down, force them both to the bottom of the 
grain; then having withdrawn the rod, turn 
in the liquid through the tube, which should 
be pulled out. The insecticide of course is 
left at the bottom of the grain, and, being 
very volatile, soon diffuses through the mass 
and converts the bin into an insect cemetery. 
There is one very important caution to be 
remembered in applying this remedy. Bisul¬ 
phide of Carbon is as explosive as it is vola¬ 
tile, and if a lighted match or lamp is carried 
into the granary or wheat-house before the 
vapor has passed off, there may be an expen¬ 
sive fire. The liquid is so disagreeably odor¬ 
ous that we may know when it is present, 
and if we use a medium amount of caution, 
we need have no fear. The explosive mate¬ 
rial is so readily diffused that, with a little 
care to ventilate, it soon escapes, and the 
danger of an explosion is gone. 
