986 
fered widely from one another in their chemical 
constitution, it became necessary to learn whether 
or not these differences affected their value in nu¬ 
trition. Accordingly, in co-operation with Prof. 
Lafayette P>. Mendel of Yale University and Miss 
Edna L. Ferry, attempts were made to feed albino 
rats on diets composed of mixtures of purified nu¬ 
trients containing one or another protein. Although 
the animals fed on these artificial diets ate enough 
for a few days, they soon began to decline in 
weight and food intake and after a few weeks died. 
Our experience was the same as that of our pre¬ 
decessors, for. in spite of every effort to make our 
animals eat enough, they all went from bad to 
worse. 
EXPERIMENTAL FEEDING.—In order to com¬ 
pare the experimental animals with others on a 
diet more closely resembling a normal one a number 
of other albino rats were fed on a mixture con¬ 
taining (10 per cent of whole milk powder, 17 per 
cent of starch and 23 per cent of lard. In contrast 
to the rats on the diets of purified nutrients those 
on the milk diet grew, reproduced and maintained 
themselves normally. There was no trouble in feed¬ 
ing these rats successfully. Although the artificial 
diets contained the same proportions .of protein, 
fat. carbohydrate and each of the inorganic ele¬ 
ments as did the rniik food, they were inadequate 
diets: the rats could not live on them. It became 
evident that there was something in the milk which 
made the mixtures containing the milk powder an 
adequate food. Although we did not know what 
this substance could be. we decided to remove the 
protein from separator milk and evaporate the 
whey. When the dried residue was used in the diets 
as a source of the mineral matter, and also as a part 
of the carbohydrate in our experimental diets, the 
rats grew normally, those declining recovered, and 
all the troubles previously encountered disappeared. 
RESULTS.—In their report of these experiments 
Osborne and Mendel (Carnegie Publication 156, 
1011) wrote: “Thus at length we have found a meth¬ 
od of controlling or furnishing some of the most es¬ 
sential non-protein factors in the diet, so that the 
value of the individual proteins can be investigated 
under much more favorable conditions than for¬ 
merly. ... It is apparent, therefore, that as a 
maintenance diet our food lacked something other 
than protein and energy. It. remains to be shown 
precisely what the lacking component of our earlier 
diets is; whether some organic constituent, or a 
peculiar proportion of inorganic ingredients.” With 
this discovery began the recognition of the part 
played in normal diets by the factors which are now 
so widely discussed under the name of vitamine. 
EXPERIMENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.—Soon 
after the publication of the report just referred to a 
paper appeared by F. G. Hopkins of Cambridge, Eng¬ 
land. in which he showed that if a very little milk 
was fed separately each day rats would then freely 
eat diets of purified food products and grow rapidly. 
From this fact, which has since been confirmed by 
hundreds of experiments, it is evident that the cause 
of the refusal of the rats to eat the artificial diets 
in sufficient quantity was not merely a lack of flavor, 
or distaste for a food to which they were not accus¬ 
tomed. but was a lack of something which was essen¬ 
tial for their well-being and even for their very ex¬ 
istence. Once this mysterious food factor was sup¬ 
plied. the artificial food mixtures appeared to satisfy 
all the needs of nutrition. I say appeared to satisfy, 
because a second remarkable discovery followed soon. 
ANOTHER DIETARY FACTOR.—The animals 
which grew normally for some time on the food com¬ 
posed of protein, carbohydrate, lard and the sepa¬ 
rator milk residue after 10 or 12 weeks ceased to 
grow, declined in weight and soon died, while those 
fed on the food containing whole milk powder did 
not thus fail. What made the difference? After 
careful consideration the only marked difference be¬ 
tween the diets appeared to be in the fat, for in one 
food all of the fat was lard, while in the food contain¬ 
ing milk a part was butterfat. Although no one had 
ever discovered anything about the nutritive value of 
fats which would even suggest that butterfat differed 
in any way from lard in its effect on the growing ani¬ 
mal. we replaced a part of the lard in the diet with 
butterfat and fed this to the moribund rats. To our 
astonishment these animals promptly recovered and 
continued from then on to thrive and grow without 
any further trouble. Here then was a second diet¬ 
ary factor which was essential for the normal growth 
of the young animal. It is interesting to note that 
this discovery was made simultaneously and inde¬ 
pendently at the Wisconsin Experiment Station by 
MV?Collum and Davis, to whom priority must be ac¬ 
corded, because they published an account of their 
results just one month before we did. 
‘lhe RURAL 1NLW-YORKF.K 
DIFFERING VITAMINES.—By these experiments 
it was proved that milk contains two substances; one 
absolutely essential for the life, the other for the 
growth of the young. The former is now known as 
the water-soluble, the latter as the fat-soluble vita- 
mine. Subsequent experiments have fully confirmed 
these discoveries and have greatly enlarged our 
knowledge of the distribution of these two factors 
in many articles commonly used as food. We thus 
have evidence that at least two vita mines exist 
which must be present in any adequate diet, one solu¬ 
ble in water, the other soluble in fats. 
FOOD QUALITY.—The water-soluble vitamine is 
not equally abundant in all parts of plants or ani¬ 
mals. These facts, which have only recently been 
learned, are of great practical importance, because 
civilized man eats only a small part of his food in 
the natural state. A large part of our modern foods 
consists of products more or less purified. Thus 
patent flour, which furnishes much of the food of 
many people, contains only the harder part of the 
endosperm of the wheat kernel, and this part of the* 
seed has been shown to contain almost none of either 
the water or fat-soluble vitamine. Sugar is almost 
chemically pure and is vitamine-free. Lard contains 
no vitamines, butter only insignificant quantities of 
the water-soluble, but much of the fat-soluble vita¬ 
mine. Meat, i. a, animal muscle, contains relatively 
A BoUlr-fal Bum Baby. Fiy. 269. 
little of either of these vitamines, but liver, kidney 
and heart contain much of both. The leaves and 
roots of plants are relatively rich in the water-solu¬ 
ble vitamine and the oil contained in the leaves also 
in the fat-soluble. These facts show how important 
a properly mixed diet is, and how necessary is a 
sufficient quantity of vegetables, if one is to be 
properly nourished. All these facts correspond with 
the general experience of mankind and explain why 
they have persisted in dietary habits which until re¬ 
cently had no support in the teachings of the science 
of nutrition. We now know that an adequate diet 
must supply other things than proteins, fats, carbo¬ 
hydrates and mineral salts for, no matter how well a 
diet containing these may supply the needed energy, 
it will be of little use unless it also supplies the vita¬ 
mines. THOMAS B. OSBORNE. 
(Continued next week.) 
Using Clover In the Silo 
A S to clover for silage, will say that I do not con¬ 
sider it equal to corn, and would not put it in 
the silo under ordinary conditions. It is much better 
to use the clover Tor hay and the corn for the silo. 
However, in the case of the first cutting of Alfalfa, 
it might be policy to put some in silo if weather was 
very wet. In regard to my experience with clover for 
silage, it might be better to explain why I have put it 
in the silo. Having a farm that is nearly all tillable. 
I have found it advisable to keep my milch cows in 
the barn during the daytime for seven Summers, and 
turn them into the pasture during the night only. 
This enables me to decrease the amount of land used 
for pasture, because they are fed silage while in the 
barn in the daytime. By this method the cows are 
not pestered with flies, and I can keep more stock and 
maintain my milk flow much better. 
Owing to the partial failure of the corn crop one 
year I was short of silage for the next Summer, and 
so thought I would try putting clover in the silo to 
feed later. The clover kept fairly well, but turned 
June 21, juiu 
rather dark and did not smell very good. When the 
silo was opened the cows did not seem to like it very 
well at first, but after a few days they ate it quite 
well and held up the milk flow. This clover was cut 
on a very wet, foggy morning, when heavily loaded 
with moisture, raked at once and drawn to the silo. 
My silos are in the end of a basement barn, and by 
driving on to the secoml-story floor we were enabled 
to pitch the clover onto a scaffold and then into the 
silo without cutting. Care was taken to see that the 
clover was evenly distributed and very thoroughly 
tramped. 
I shall not try it again this Summer, as I have 
nearly enough corn silage to last me through the 
Summer. If I were short of silage I would put some 
iu the silo again this year, as I Shall have an enor¬ 
mous crop of clover, thanks to the use of lime. I 
would not advise the average farmer to try it except 
as stated before; that is, in case of first cutting of 
Alfalfa. The clover should be cut when very green, 
as when it commences to ripen it w r ould be too woody 
to pack well. We did not cut it at all, hut put it into 
the silo whole. We never have tried running it 
through the blower, but from experience I have had 
with small leafy corn would expect there would be 
trouble in getting it through the blower pipe. An¬ 
other objection to putting much of it in the silo is its 
bulkiness, for it would take a lot of silo room to 
hold even a small aci’eage. We cut not to exceed 
three-fourths of an acre of the clover, and it made 
14 ft, in depth in a silo 11 ft. in diameter. 
It would be necessary to use water if the clover 
was becoming ripe or had commenced to dry after 
cutting. The best time to cut it would be when very 
wet, with a rain or heavy dew; rake at once and 
put into the silo at once, before it had a chance to 
wilt or dry. m. c. porter. 
R. N.-Y.—Some years ago in Delaware we saw 
bow the late E. IT. Bancroft used Crimson clover as 
silage. The seed of Crimson was used as a cover crop 
in corn at the last cultivation. In the following 
May, while in bloom, this clover was cut into the silo 
and well tramped down. Then the stubble was ma¬ 
nured and plowed and used for corn or tomatoes. 
Year by year the soil grew more productive through 
this treatment, and the silage was fed out during 
the Summer. It took the place of pasture. During 
the hot weather it was black and often strong smell¬ 
ing. but the cows enjoyed it and did well on it. 
The Business of a Peach Orchard 
RECENT bulletin, No. 04. from the Michigan 
Experiment Station at East Lansing, contains a 
study of a 12-vear-old peach orchard. This orchard 
is located in Allegan Co., Mich., eight miles from 
South Haven. It is located on good peach soil, 
which means a gravelly or sandy loam. There is 
good air drainage, wlith a gentle slope to the south¬ 
west. The land was originally covered with hard¬ 
wood timber. After clearing, general farm crops 
were raised. This is the third bearing orchard upon 
lhe same land, and was set in the Spring of 1007. 
The trees were planted 20 ft. apart each way. This 
is now called a mistake, as 24 ft., or even more, 
would have been better. The trees in the orchard in¬ 
clude 100 trees of New Prolific, 370 Engles, 200 Kal¬ 
amazoo, 120 Gold Drop, 125 Elberta, 100 Banner. 100 
Fitzgerald. 275 Smock and 200 Salways. As Ss not 
uncommon, some were not true to name. Of the 
Smock 120 were Champion, and nearly all the Ban¬ 
ner were unknown. The nurserymen made a refund 
when the mistake was discovered. The following 
statement gives the commercial return for the 12 
years of the life of this orchard: 
r-For Entire 
> Orchard--, 
Per Acre. 
Total 
Total 
Net r.oss 
Year 
Age 
Expenses 
Receipts 
or Profit 
1007— 
1 
year.. .. 
$415.06 
$509.50 
$6.20 
1908— 
2 
years... 
225.25 
L 15.01 
1000— 
• » 
• » 
years... 
204.60 
65.00 
L 0.31 
lino—i 
years... 
238.28 
L 15.88 
1011 — 
r> 
vears... 
772.43 
2,561.25 
119.26 
1012—6 
years... 
832.84 
2,020.09 
130.22 
1013— 
7 
years... 
755.13 
1.800.00 
60.66 
1014— 
-8 
years... 
1.202.77 
4,015.45 
181.51 
1015— 
0 
years... 
873.35 
1,000.56 
14.48 
1916— 
10 years.. 
1.064.51 
2,832.22 
117.85 
1017— 
11. years.. 
618.74 
1.672.50 
70.25 
1018— 
l: 
1 years.. 
538.41 
1,626.95 
72.57 
Tota 
ils. 
$7,831.37 
$19,094.42 
$750.80 
The 
first year 
of planting, 
a crop of 
corn was 
grown 
between the 
> young trees 
:. As we see. 
this gave 
an income of $500.50, and the cultivation of the corn, 
of course, helped the trees. The third year there is 
a credit of $65, which represents the money refunded 
by the nurserymen for trees not true to name. This 
represents the payment for about 200 trees. There 
was no income for the fourth year, but the trees be¬ 
gan bearing the fifth year and have given fair crops 
ever since. The season of 1914 was the heaviest year, 
