Abstract
Experimental cattle aided agricultural scientists throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in their efforts to produce beef and milk more efficiently for the growing human populations of the United States. Feed experiments were especially important for understanding how and what cattle needed to eat to better produce this food. However, as experts dedicated their time toward creating the most “economical” rations, their organism of focus shifted. This essay describes how scientific efforts to understand feed conversion in livestock became increasingly focused on the role of ruminant microorganisms over the course of the twentieth century. Highlighting media coverage of fistulated cows and the design of artificial rumens, I argue that the scientific shift from macro- to microorganism was contemporaneously embraced and, in turn, funded by agricultural chemical companies to better market animal feed products by the postwar period.
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Notes
The lectures, along with accompanying poster boards, were presented and displayed at the 2017 World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. The catchphrase comes from an article in an online agricultural magazine. See Hunt (2014).
When newspapers of the time announced how cattle synthesize vitamin B through the rumen, writers called it “bovine alchemy.” See, for example, NEA Service (1930).
See Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, From June 17, 1869, to June 16, 1870, p. xxviii.
The researchers explained that a diet of “corn gluten meal, cane sugar, commercial casein, polished rice, corn-starch, pearled hominy, dried sugar beet pulp, cod liver oil, and mineral supplements” was “practically devoid of the vitamin B complex” (Bechdel et al. 1928, p. 232).
Rural newspapers across the country published articles about Jessie’s surgery. See, for example, The Capital Times (December 8, 1926); The Ithaca Journal (December 7, 1926); The Chattanooga News (February 10, 1927); Pottsville Republican (December 7, 1926); The Sentinel (June 9, 1928), and The Sentinel (October 27, 1928).
Amadon is mentioned in a report in the Asbury Park Press (December 7, 1926).
As described in the Indiana Gazette (May 31, 1928).
The Ithaca Journal (December 7, 1926).
The News-Chronicle (June 12, 1928).
The News-Chronicle (June 12, 1928).
Cumberland Evening Times (February 22, 1930).
The Culver Citizen (July 12, 1933).
Also spelled as rumenology. For a book that attempts to map this field on an international scale, see Millen, De Beni Arrigoni, and Dias Lauritano Pacheco, eds., Rumenology (2016).
An important figure in the history of ruminology who worked to classify and identify the “complete ecology” of the rumen is Hungate (see 1960).
Although Hopkins did not like the term vitamin, which was coined by Casimir Funk, Hopkins’ work with what he called “growth promoting factors,” “exogenous growth hormones,” and “food hormone factors” was crucial to the understanding of vitamins in nutrition science and biochemistry (Weatherall and Kamminga 1996, p. 417).
Described in detail in Arlington Heights Herald (August 10, 1961).
See Algona Upper Des Moines (March 11, 1952).
This is how Pennsylvania State University described the eventual fallout in net energy values; see Cowan (2020).
Hershberger’s role in replacing the rubber of the device and his calculations for these studies were recounted during an oral history interview on August 17, 2016. The transcript is available by request from the author.
Miscellaneous correspondence from July 1941–September 1941. RG 16, Box 295. Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture. National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.
Marshfield News Herald (August 15, 1942).
“How Two-Sixty-Two Feed Compound Made from Urea Supplies Protein for Cattle and Sheep,” E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company—Ammonia Department, undated (circa 1950s). William du Pont, Jr. Papers, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
For one example of “Mike the Soil Microbe,” see the advertisement in National 4-H News (November 1954).
US Patent 3,502,478, “Ruminant Feed,” Eugene S. Erwin, assignor to Monsanto Company.
Feed company-agricultural college partnerships were normal but could be controversial, depending on the situation. If a school advertised a specific brand of feed through their extension work, this was considered inappropriate. However, general findings in favor of certain kinds of feed, and conclusions in the form of published scientific articles, had been deemed appropriate since these partnerships began to form in the late nineteenth century. These conclusions are based on correspondence in the Cornell University Library Special Collections, especially the Leonard Maynard Papers, Ithaca, New York.
The Texhoma Times (December 4, 1952).
The Cattleman (May 1955).
Lenox Time Table (January 1, 1959).
The Salina Journal (June 6, 1954).
The Columbus Telegram, June 30, 1956.
The Ada Weekly News (December 3, 1953).
The Curtis Enterprise (March 3, 1955). The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), University of Reading, UK, has a copy of the film in their archive.
See advertisement in Rushville Republican (November 11, 1957).
Moravia Union (February 5, 1959).
For this argumentation related to Rumensin (monensin) and the debate over whether antimicrobial residues reach meat, see Florida Cattleman and Livestock Journal (October 1978).
Anonymously Authored Newspaper and Trade Publications
1926. Cut ‘Door’ In Stomach of Live Cow; Test Food. The Capital Times. Madison, Wisconsin: 11.
1926. Cut Doorway Cow’s Stomach. Pottsville Republican. Pottsville, Pennsylvania: 1.
1926. Doorway in Heifer’s Stomach Permits Important Tests. The Ithaca Journal. Ithaca, New York: 1.
1926. Tap Cow’s “Tummy” to Study Phenomenon of Milk Vitamin. Asbury Park Press. Asbury Park, New Jersey.
1927. Put Door in Cow’s Stomach for Study. The Chattanooga News. Chattanooga, Oklahoma: 3.
1928. Cow with Trap-Door in Stomach Makes New Record. The Sentinel. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: 7.
1928. Expect 600 At Feed Dealers’ State Meet. Indiana Gazette. Indiana, Pennsylvania.
1928. No Privacy for Jessie. The Sentinel. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: 3.
1928. Penstate Jessie Objects. The News-Chronicle. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.
1930. Scientists Mourn Death of Cow With Window in Body. Cumberland Evening Times. Cumberland, Maryland: 7.
1933. This ‘Window’ Cow Aided Science. The Culver Citizen. Culver, Indiana: 3.
1942. Cows Eat and Like Synthetic Product. Marshfield News Herald: 6.
1952. Feeding Artificial Cow Stomachs. Algona Upper Des Moines. Algona, Iowa: 25.
1952. Here’s Why Occo Can Cut Protein Costs. The Texhoma Times. Texhoma, Oklahoma: 5.
1953. Feed the Evergreen Way. The Ada Weekly News. Ada, Oklahoma: 6.
1954. Now it Pays More Than Ever to Gooch Your Cows. The Salina Journal. Salina, Kansas: 26.
1955. Find Out How Occo Saves You Money. The Cattleman: 21.
1955. The Rumen Story Showing at Curtis. The Curtis Enterprise. Curtis, Nebraska: 6.
1956. Are You All Feedin’ My Rumen Bugs? The Columbus Telegram. Columbus, Nebraska: 8.
1959. Occo Increases Milk Production. Moravia Union. Moravia, Iowa: 2.
1959. Sweet Lassy Puts the Heat On Sluggish Rumen “Bugs.” Lenox Time Table. Lenox, Iowa: 7.
1961. Mechanized “Stomach” Aids Dairy Research. Arlington Heights Herald. Arlington Heights, Illinois: 58.
1978. Rumens. In Florida Cattleman and Livestock Journal, 28–29.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, Brad Bolman, Tabea Cornel, Charles Kollmer, the fellows of the 2018-2019 University of Pennsylvania Wolf Humanities Seminar, and the North Carolina State University Department of History Research Workshop for helpful comments in previous versions of this paper.
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Welk-Joerger, N. The Business with “Bugs”: Ruminology and the Commercial Feed Industry in the United States. J Hist Biol 55, 89–113 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09674-9
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