REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. . 9 
Experiments on the fattening of sheep for the market 
have been made with the co-operation of Mr. Charles E. 
Lyman of Middlefield, one of the largest and most successful 
sheep-feeders in New England. 
Digestion experiments with sheep have been continued. 
These are tests of the digestibility of different feeding stuffs, 
more especially those used in the feeding experiments with 
milch cows. Experience has shown that sheep digest nearly 
the same proportions of these materials as cows, and as ex- 
periments are more easily made with sheep they are used for 
the purpose. 
THE FOOD AND NUTRITION OF MAN. 
The Act of Congress providing appropriations for experi- 
ment stations in the different States makes provision for the 
study of the economy of the food and the laws of the nutrition 
of man. Congress also provides a special appropriation of 
$15,000 per annum for inquiries in these directions. The re- 
sponsibility of their execution rests in the Secretary of Agri- 
culture, who has appointed the director of this Station as 
special agent of the Department of Agriculture in charge of 
nutrition investigations. The Legislature of Connecticut 
makes an appropriation of $1,800 per annum for studies of 
food economy, and of the bacteriology of milk. The investi- 
gations by the Station on the food and nutrition of man are 
accordingly carried out in co-operation with the United S‘ites 
Department of Agriculture, and thus form a part of an ex- 
tended system of inquiries, which are under the immediate 
supervision of the director, and have been and are being pros- 
ecuitted in experiment stations, colleges, universities, and in 
co-operation with benevolent organizations in Maine, Massa- 
chusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, 
North Dakota, California, and New Mexico. 
The topics that have received especial attention are 
the composition of food materials, the kinds and amounts of 
food consumed by individuals, families, boarding-houses and 
institutions, the digestibility of food materials, and the funda- 
mental laws of nutrition. The most important work of the 
Station is found in the experiments with man in the respiration 
calorimeter. Arrangements are being made for similar ex- 
periments with domestic animals. The object of these experi- 
ments is to gain more definite knowledge than we now have 
