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Mineral Deficiencies and Animal Diseases
Typed, undated manuscript.
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Through all the period of recorded history, not only of the recent past with its written records, but throughout the almost limitless past as recorded in the petrified animal structures, the fossilized skeletons as well as the skeletons themselves have disclosed processes which show evidence of being related to nutritional deficiencies. When these deficiencies have developed with a slow but incessant increase in severity nature seems to have changed the size and perhaps the form to adapt the animal to the limited mineral content of the food, and similarly when conditions were progressively more favorable the animal forms seem to have taken on much greater size and perfection of development. We are very likely to think of this problem as being academic or of interest only to workers in special fields, not realizing that it constitutes a very important and even distressing problem many places at this particular time in history, though perhaps not more so than in various periods of the past. The new viewpoint that many of the conditions we have looked upon as being diseases are really symptoms of deficiencies compels us to look with a new interest and concern upon these disturbances in growth and function in many forms of animal life.
We have seen in Chapter … the relationship between the mineral content of soil, plant, animal and food and how the soil plus sunshine and moisture is able to provide to the plant minerals which go to make up its structure and provide in it minerals even higher in concentration than they will be found available in the soil itself. In… chapter we have also seen how the plant is able to utilize only binary compounds dissolved in water and that the animal cannot use binary compounds, but must use higher chemical forms, chiefly tertiary and also that the animal cannot use the minerals of the plant in many instances (and perhaps in all) without the aid of special activators that are built by the plant together with forces that the animal receives from the sun. The animal is able to concentrate the minerals that are in the plant and in many instances to much higher values, and further the animal is dependent upon both radiant energy and its products for growth and function; and except for the energy it obtains from radiant energy the animal is dependent entirely upon plants directly or indirectly for the materials from which its body is made and the fuel for energy. The animal, in turn, stores the products which it derives from the plants (or from eating animals that have eaten plants) in products of its body such as milk of the mammals and eggs of birds. These in turn can be used as food for animals and these foods may contain the minerals which are to be the building stones of animal bodies. In any case, these building stones must be available in adequate quantity and form in the soil from which the plants shall grow to produce the energy. This progressive series of transfers of the mineral factors is shown graphically [in] Chapter…Figure…, under the title of: “Comparison of Mineral Content of Soil, Plant, Animal and Food,” and repeated again here.
An illustration of the direct effect of pastures on the animal form will be seen in the chart in Figure 1. It has long been known that when animals are transferred from one district to another there may be either a marked increase in their well-being and physical development or on the contrary, a decrease. If, however, the factors controlling this developmental and functional change are marked and shall continue through succeeding generations, there will often be seen a marked change in the size and structural and functional efficiency of the animals concerned. It is accordingly the practice in many parts of the world to have animals shipped from areas that produce excellent stock to those producing less vigorous and efficient forms in order to continually replenish the virility of the stock. It probably has not been appreciated how readily this can be a factor of the soil producing the pasturage and plant food for the animals. In this figure 2 the comparative levels will be seen in graphically of several of the chemicals as found in the pasture of two districts; (A) Lord Aston’s Race Horse Paddock in England, and (B) Falkland Island Pastures. In this illustration the solid column marked a represents the grass from Lord Aston’s race horse paddock and the open work column marked B, the pasturage in Falkland Islands. The total mineral is indicated by the silica free ash compared as the oxide of the mineral is seen to be more than twice as great in the former as in the latter which is also true of the total nitrogen. The difference in the level of calcium in these two grasses is enormous, the former being approximately tenfold that of the latter. The potassium and phosphorus also show higher values in Lord Aston’s pasturage, whereas chlorine or mineral acid and the fiber are higher in the Falkland Island Pastures.
It is particularly important and instructive that succeeding generations of horses produced on Lord Aston’s paddock have not only held their own high standards of development and efficiency, but have also shown an actual increase in succeeding generations so that they have come to represent some of the highest type of equine stock in the world. When these same horses are transferred to the Falkland Island environment, that deficient soil is not able to maintain the proper mineral nutriments for maintaining the body even after it has been splendidly built and these animals begin early to deteriorate. Progressive generations are physically less well developed with the result that in a few generations magnificent specimens have reduced in size to mere ponies. The formula of the ration might appear to be the same for the two groups of horses, but alas they are far from being similar.
When we consider similarly what is occurring in the history of other animals we find the dairy cow (probably no other animal of which has been so much of a blessing to man) likewise compelled to degenerate, not only on a few areas, but on many areas of the pasture land of the world. We are dealing at this point with a fact that should profoundly concern and even alarm an intelligence citizenry. There are many areas where a few years ago, not only splendid incomes were provided to the residents from dairy products, and meat and hides, but which maintained a supply of food for the people living in those districts where the conditions have greatly changed. It is found that the settlers are moving away because they cannot continue to rear cattle that can produce dairy products of quantity and quality sufficient to maintain an industry, nor even sufficient to nourish the local population. In many places cheese factories are boarded up, creameries closed, tanneries in decay and railroad stations closed and the stops abandoned. The reason for all this has been very simple. The available minerals of the soil in the community opened up a few generations ago were not large in quantity to start with, and every bushel of grain, hundredweight of beef or car load of dairy products carried away from that district–even train loads a year of these scanty minerals, so that shortly the small amount that was present in available form for plant life was sufficiently exhausted so that even though the grass grew with the continuation of an abundance of sunshine and rain, its quality was so deficient in minerals that it could not maintain animal life in sufficiently robust form to continue the high production required for the method of living with which life is associated. Mother earth is relentless in demanding that she be paid back in coin. Few people have suspected that every time a bushel of oats is moved off the farm a pound of precious phosphorus is taken out of the soil.
Roberts and Ewan have shown in their work in the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station that “a 50 bushel corn crop requires approximately 76 pounds of nitrogen, as much as is contained in 7 ½ tons of average farm manure or about 2 tons of clover hay. A wheat crop of 25 bushels requires approximately 50 pounds of nitrogen.”
Different samples of the same grain as will be shown later may have quite different chemical content. Some idea, however, of the minerals that are taken out of the soil for a given grain maybe gathered from the following: 50 bushels of oats contain 36 pounds of nitrogen, 6 of phosphorus and 8 of potassium, while 1¼ tons of the oat straw that produced the grain would contain 18 pounds of nitrogen, 3 of phosphorus and 26 of potassium. If this grew on one acre the crop would take 49 pounds of nitrogen, 9 of phosphorus and 54 of potassium, or a total of 92 pounds would be taken from that top soil in these three chemicals alone. A wheat crop yielding 25 bushels to an acre would take 48 pounds of nitrogen, 8 of phosphorus and 29 of potassium, or a total of 85, seven pounds less than the former. A crop of soybeans, 25 bushels to the acre (2¼ tons of straw), would take 160 pounds of nitrogen, 21 of phosphorus and 74 of potassium making a total of 255 pounds. A ton of clover hay, a total of 75 pounds for these three chemicals. A ton of Timothy hay, 51 pounds of these chemicals. Alfalfa hay per ton, 79 pounds. 300 bushels of potatoes, 166 pounds. 1,000 pounds of fat cattle, 25 pounds of nitrogen, 7 pounds of phosphorus and 1 pound of potassium. 1,000 pounds of fat hogs contain 18 pounds of nitrogen, 3 of phosphorus and 1 of potassium. 10,000 pounds of milk, 57 pounds of nitrogen, 7 of phosphorus and 12 of potassium.
When we realized that one ton of fresh farm manure contains only 10 pounds of nitrogen, 2 pounds of phosphorus and 8 pounds of potassium, we see the enormous difficulty of keeping the soil replenished by the use of fertilizers. We are liable to think of the soil as being almost inexhaustible in these chemicals. It has been calculated that the top 7 inches of an acre of land weighs approximately 2 million pounds.
Ramsy, working in Australia, has shown that the difference between a soil producing fairly healthy stock and one producing unhealthy stock affected with osteomalacia was the difference between 37 and 40 parts per million of water soluble lime (calcium oxide) and the difference between 101 and 82 parts per million of water soluble potash of the soluble phosphoric acid being approximately four parts per million in both soils. From this it will be seen that in the top 7 inches containing 2 million total pounds there would only be in even a fair soil 67 pounds that would make from 60 to 74 pounds of lime as calcium oxide in a soluble form in the particular soils that he studied. The difference between the total plant food and available plant food for the various chemicals may vary through considerable range. Plants can only utilize water soluble binary.
Roberts has shown in his work in the Kentucky Agricultural Station that in 2 million pounds of soil covering an acre there would be found for several counties in Kentucky varying total amounts of potassium and phosphorus and similarly marked variable amounts of easily soluble potassium and phosphorus. In 11 areas the total potassium present in the top seven inches of an acre of soil (a total of approximately 2 million pounds) varied from 34,000 to 18,000 pounds. The easily soluble potassium for the same area amounted from 218 to 390 pounds, averaging about one per cent. For phosphorus the figures for the total for six of the areas ranged from 650 to 980 pounds, while the easily soluble phosphorus ranged in these areas from 6 to 26 pounds. For four other areas the total phosphorus ranged from 1100 to 1900 pounds and the easily soluble or plant available phosphorus ranged from 20 to 98 pounds per acre. In one area, however, they found a total for phosphorus of 9,416 pounds and of easily soluble 3,582 pounds. This gives an idea of the tremendous variations that some particular soil may have in comparison with another. It will readily be seen from these data that with a crop that is taking 8 to 21 pounds of phosphorus per acre from a soil that only contains from 6 to 98 pounds of phosphorus, it cannot put into the seed the proper amount of this chemical; and similarly with a demand for potassium ranging from 29 pounds for wheat to 74 pounds for beans, 30 pounds for clover hay, The potassium of the soil will very rapidly be diminished when the total per acre that is available for plants is from 218 to 390 as a maximum. It will, of course, readily be seen that exhaustion is inevitable unless replenishment is made. Hopkins in his splendid work on soil fertilization (Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture) states “that under good farm practice roughly an amount of potassium equal to one quarter of 1 per cent of the amount contained in the surface seven inches becomes available in the growing season. The situation, however, with regard to phosphorus is not so favorable, and great reduction in fertility and animal production is occasioned in many parts of the world due to the depletion of the phosphorus content of the soil. when we realize that 25 bushels of wheat (and the stalk to produce it) take 85 pounds of the 3 chemicals, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium from the soil and 1,000 pounds of fat cattle, live weight, take 33 pounds and much more for the same amount of dressed meat, and then realize that over 60 per cent of the sea borne exports of dairy products and beef and over 90 per cent of the sea borne exports of mutton and lamb carried into Great Britain in a ceaseless procession of ship loads from other lands amount to two billion dollars per annum of grass land products in the form of live stock products and five hundred million dollars worth of wheat annually, we get some conception of just one phase of the demand upon the tillable soil of the inhabitable lands of the earth. We see from this general survey evidence of a need for a more intimate study of the problems, including development of health of different communities and their relation to soil depletion.
It is neither necessary nor desirable that I include here a comprehensive discussion of the various animal disturbances that are known to be related to food deficiencies. The data I am presenting are used primarily to illustrate the close relationship between mineral utilization and chemical content of the necessary elements in the soil and grass since the various forms of animals, including humans, are dependent in general upon the same laws and further to show the intimate relationship between the activators and vitamins. Mineral utilization by the animals of plant life depends on several factors, including an adequate quantity and assortment of minerals for the development of vitamins and other activators. It is important to keep in mind that one of the purposes of the study is to throw light upon the factors involved in making it difficult to maintain normal growth and function for humans.
An incident in connection with the carrying forward of this series of investigations on the level of the fat-soluble vitamins in milk-fat of the same districts at different times and of different districts at the same time has thrown important light on the problem with which we are concerned. As butter and cream samples were being received from over 400 localities one series of samples was comparatively higher than others of the same general district, and since an important phase of this investigation has been to obtain light, if possible, upon contributing factors, I went to that farm which was in Western Pennsylvania to obtain data first hand. I found that the cows producing this favorable product were grazing on river bottom land and showed evidence of being in especially fine physical condition, their coats being sleek and glossy. I watched carefully to see what grass they were eating for there were many kinds available. They would wade through a luxuriant growth that was up to their knees, showing evidence of being in search for something. Frequently they were found grazing on knolls where there was little available grass, for it had been eaten almost into the ground. In most places they seemed to eat right to the roots of the grass. I had gone prepared to get samples of soils and grasses and a number of each were brought back to my laboratory for analysis. It was very conspicuous that many of the cows were looking for a particular plant (locally called “Iron Weed”), known as eupatorium, from which they were stripping the leaves. This plant grew from two to four feet in height and I was told it got its name because it was so hard for a plow to cut through one of the roots. I tried to pull up a small plant and found it quite impossible. I was also told that its roots go into the ground about as deep as the plant is tall. I purposely took samples of the grass and soil beneath it from each the grass that was being eaten and that which was apparently not being touched. This river bottom land was an area several hundred yards in breadth and showed evidence of frequent if not annual overflowing with the spring floods. It also showed evidence of transported matter spread out over it in various stages of decomposition. The sloping sides of the valley went back approximately a half a mile on each side to the general level of the country, the river level being approximately two hundred feet below the top of the slope. The following is taken from my field notes made at the time.
“The following specimens were obtained on the Moore Farm which lies just over the Ohio border in Pennsylvania, about seven miles north of Sharon and three miles north of Sharpsville on the Sharpsville and Orangeville Road, R. R. #54. The farm is about two miles southeast of Orangeville, Ohio and is in Pymatuning Township. It lies chiefly on the west side of the Pymatuning river valley with one hundred acres of low land on the east side. The general formation is a valley varying from one to two miles at the crest and ridges and from one to two hundred feet deep sloping on both sides toward a basin which varies in width from a few hundred yards to half a mile through which the river flows southward.
“The sides of the valley are tilled and apparently growing splendid crops. The lowland is about six to twelve feet higher than the bed of the river and the riverbed from one to three hundred feet wide with a gravel bottom and only an occasional coarse border. The freshly cut bank shows the following sections: the top few inches stained dark with humus; and most places quite rich on top. The top eighteen inches is alluvial and humus; next three and a half feet pure alluvial and fifteen inches of very fine silica sand under which is a bed of coarse gravel of unknown depth. Thirty foot wells have not gone through it. Drilled wells show the gravel to be down two hundred feet. Gas was obtained from six hundred to two thousand feet and no rock found. At one point on the river bank a bolt of blue clay appears of unknown depth at the summer water line. The river is only a foot or two deep in most places with frequent holes of greater depth. The soil of the fertile side hills is largely post-glacial mixed with humus. About a mile west of the river there is found near the surface, flag stone which is not found associated in a soil so fertile as the valley sides.
“The farm in question and some other farms adjoining have not had a tubercular reactor among the cows in the history of the farms, except on one farm where a cow was brought from an infected area and discovered soon after arriving and was eliminated. In many farms beside the river valley in both directions much trouble has been had with tuberculosis among the cattle. In one known as the Lieutenant-Governor Jones Farm, one mile south of Burghill and about two miles from the Moore farm, eighteen out of twenty cows were found reacting to the tubercular test this summer and the entire twenty were sacrificed. This farm is in Hartford Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. In this township there is much flat country. The farm crops do not look so vigorous as in the valley; drainage was naturally poor and the soil seemed very deficient as judged by the type of verdure.
“A sample of pasture grass with soil was obtained on the Lieutenant-Governor Jones Farm. This grass is numbered 6A and the soil was marked 6B. The name of Poverty or June Grass was given to the grass found growing in the pasture. Samples were taken August 18th, 1929. The grass was virtually dry and was standing about a foot high; apparently the seed had been ripe in this dry state for many weeks. There was some green tissue at the lower part of the stems but very little green shoots above the root.
“Five samples of grasses and soils were obtained on the Moore Farm. These are lettered A and B in association with numbers in the order taken.
“Number 1A is a plant that grows from a few inches to six feet in height and is known as ‘Iron Weed’ which name it was said to get because when plowing it was so hard for the plow to cut through one of the roots. Cows were seen eating the leaves from this plant. This plant is probably eupatorium. It grows abundantly along the river and along the lowland. The solid taken from around the root of the Iron Weed is numbered 1B.
“Number 2A is taken from a dry swale in the bottom land a few yards from the river and shows that the cows have been recently eating it. The solid from this grass is shown in Number 2B.
“Number 3A was taken from the dry ground in bottom land near the river. The soil associated with it is shown in number 3B.
“A sample of the sub-soil fourteen inches below the surface in the river bottom is shown in 7B.
“A study of the pasture indicated that the closest grazing had been done on the knolls between the scattered trees. In many places this was eaten right down to the roots, almost into the dirt. The vegetation consisted of very fine soft, straight grass growing through a tangled mat of moss and diminutive clover, one being definitely white clover. Where horses were grazing they were biting the lichen and sweet clover close to the ground. It was reported that both horses and cattle would develop a sleek coat of hair and become fat in a very short time on this general pasturage. The only way we could obtain samples was by shaving a shallow layer of top soil, thus taking roots and all. The soil and vegetation are therefore combined in the sample numbered 4A and B.
“Sample Number 5A is the second crop of clover hay that had just been put in the silo the day before and will be fed to the cattle and horses next winter. The first crop of clover from this field was buried too deeply to get a sample of but can be obtained when uncovered in the winter. The soil from which this has grown is in the bottom of the same bag and is numbered 5B. This field is about one-eighth of a mile from the river on the sloping valley side.
“While most of the farmers of this part of the country have to be quite particular about crop rotation, particularly so beside the river valley, this is not directly practiced in the valley because it is not found necessary. Some rotation is practiced by keeping a field in clover for about three years then potatoes one year and corn, wheat or oats after. This field was top dressed with the barn fertilizer a year ago last fall and was lime dressed two years ago with one ton of crushed limestone per acre. The clover was very even and considered a vigorous growth.
“Number 8B, a sample of silt and water-soaked swale. The milk, at present, from about twenty cows amounts to about three hundred pounds daily and is gathered up in cans for a creamery in the neighboring town. The cows have recently had added to their pasture, stock feed of gluten and cotton seed meal. This is given to them in their stalls when they are put in for milking. It has been noticed that the cows and horses have had such a fondness for the pasture grass across the river in the lowland that they make a great effort to get to it. For example, when the river is at flood tide with the approach of spring, just as the snow is going off, the cattle will voluntarily swim across the river in very cold water to get to this pasturage. Great care is exercised to prevent the importation of tubercular cattle into farms that have been free from this affection, there being a severe fine for taking a cow from an area that is not certified to one that is.”
Some of the data obtained from the chemical analyses for the mineral content of grasses from the district in question are shown in figure 3 entitled: Mineral Content of Grasses From Dairy District in Northwestern Pennsylvania. This shows six types of plants that were studied that were growing on three types of soil. Poverty Grass apparently constituted a very large proportion of the total plant forms growing, taken from a farm outside the river basin. This farm looked as though it had good care, and from the creek beds of the ravines of this section there was a general sandstone base underlying several feet of soil. The hill side land of the river valley, the river bottom land and the upper land soils as formed beneath the different plants were studied. These soils are shown in relation to the plants studied from above them in charts, figures 3 and 4. In this first chart will also be seen whether the grasses shown were being eaten by the cattle or not. The quantity of the following chemicals are shown for these six grasses and plants: magnesium, iron, phosphorus, calcium, potassium and nitrogen. It will be seen at a glance that there is very great difference in the chemical content of the various grasses expressed as dry weight. The calcium, for example, is lowest in the Poverty Grass, second highest in the red clover hay, third highest in the knoll grass that was being eaten so closely and much the highest in the leaves of the eupatorium plant (iron weed), which the cattle were eating so greedily. The iron was very much the highest in the knoll grass which was being cropped so closely. The potassium was also highest in the eupatorium plant. We see at once a sufficient reason why the cattle selected the knoll grass and so-called “iron weed” leaves. From a given amount of grass eaten these cows would get about six times as much iron from these grasses as from the Poverty Grass or the swale grass, which was very rank, and about 15 times as much calcium from the leaves of the iron weed as the cows in the farm nearby would get from Poverty Grass, or over five times as much as they would get had they eaten the vigorously growing swale grass. (discuss nitrogen here)