Albrecht on drugstore minerals

[Guest guest]

From Volumes I and IV of the Albrecht Papers:

" Recent experiments using sheep demonstrate the fact that putting the

lime on the soil makes lespedeza hay, for example, a much more

efficient growth producer. Liming increased the yield of the

lespedeza crop by about 25%. Each pound of limed hay, however, was

about 50% more efficient in terms of lamb growth resulting from

consuming it. With the animals eating all the hay they could, those

eating the hay given proper soil treatment made 50% more gain.

Because of better crop yield, and greater growth-producing efficiency

of the hay the limed acre was then about 75% more efficient interms

of increase in sheep weight.

That the lime was effective, not wholly because of the nutrient

element calcium, and the phosphate not wholly because of the element

phosphorus, delivered by these soil treatments is shown by these hays

in digestion trials with rabbits. Contrary to expection, the hay

giving the poorer growth rate was the more completely digested.

Therefore, the animal machine was handling the vegetable matter to

the best of its ability.

Unfortuneatly, however, the unlimed hay was deficient in something to

help the animal build the calcium and phosphorus into its body. These

two bone building essentials in the animals on the poorer hay were

being eliminated by way of the urine just twice as fast as from the

animals on the more efficeint hay. These minerals were digested, but

apparently the plants had not worked them into proper combination, or

provided the manufactured supplement for their effective service

within the body.

The mere delivery of calcium and phosphorus to the digestive tract,

and a high degree of digestibility of them are apparently not enough.

These essential minerals must enter into nutritional service for the

plant first if they are to be of nutritional service to the animal.

If these are the facts, then drugstore minerals shovelled into the

feedbox are not equal in value to those put on the land as soil

treatment and as help in the better output of the many complexes from

the plant factory. "

Chi