
COMPOSITION OF NEW ENGLAND FEEDING STUFFS. I4I 
grains, gluten and oil meals, wheat bran, etc. This distinction, 
which depends upon the mechanical condition of the feeding 
stuffs, while convenient, is arbitrary. It is generally believed 
that the coarse materials, such as hay, straw, etc., are essential 
for such animals as chew the cud and for horses. It is certainly 
of great importance that the coarse fodders of the farm should 
be profitably utilized, and it may be that the supposed necessity 
of this class of foods for ruminants is based more upon economi- 
cal than upon physiological grounds. However this may be, the 
reason why any or all of the materials commonly used for food 
are so used, lies in the fact that, whatever their source or 
mechanical condition, they contain those classes of compounds 
which are essential for animal life, and consequently the produc- 
tion of milk, butter, beef, or work. 
COMPOSITION OF FEEDING STUFFS. 
The materials which we feed, so far from being simple in their 
structure, are composed of many different compounds, which, in 
the current methods of analysis, are more or less roughly grouped 
as water, protein, fats, carbohydrates and mineral matters or ash. 
The water of a feeding stuff is of no more value for feeding 
purposes than other water, and hence should not be included 
among the nutrients or nutritive matter of food. It is quite a 
common belief among farmers that certain succulent foods such 
as potatoes, roots and green fodders are more valuable for being 
watery. A good many exact feeding experiments upon this sub- 
ject have failed to show that these foods are more digestible and 
otherwise more valuable for making meat or milk, or for any 
other purpose of feeding, because of their large water content. 
Indeed, the presence of water in a food, instead of increasing, 
reduces the feeding value, since it decreases the amount of 
nutritive materials (nutrients). A feeding stuff which contains 
fifty per cent. of water will have only a little more than half the 
quantity of nutrients that the same material would furnish if the 
amount of water was reduced to ten percent. In other words, 
the less water a feeding stuff contains, other things being equal, 
the higher will be its feeding value. 
The nutrients proper, then, consist-of the compounds grouped 
under protein, fat, carbohydrates, and mineral matters. 
The protein consists in part of the albuminoids or albumen 
like substance, a familiar example of which is the gluten of 
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