FOOD VALUE. The grain of buckwheat and its various by-products are used to a limited extent for feeding farm animals, as are also the green plant and the straw. Buckwheat flour and grits are used as human food. The plants are some times grown as bee-plants for the honey they fur nish, the Japanese buckwheat being especially satisfactory for this purpose. The buckwheat grain has the following percentage composition: Water, 12.6; protein, IO; fat, 2.2; nitrogen-free extract. 64.5; crude fibre, 8.7; and ash, 2. It contains rather more crude fibre and less nitro gen-free extract than other common cereal grains. Buckwheat has been successfully fed to pigs, being not quite equal to wheat for this purpose. It does not appear that, as sometimes claimed. it is a cause of soft pork. It is also used as a poultry food. The hulls are woody and have lit tle feeding value. The portion next to the hull, which is known as middlings, has a high feeding value. A mixture of the hulls and middlings, com monly called buckwheat bran, is much inferior to the middlings on account of the admixture of the comparatively worthless hulls. Buckwheat
middlings and bran are usually fed to dairy cows. The floury portion of the grain may he re garded as a valuable and economical feed. Green buckwheat forage is sometimes fed to stook. but often has an injurious effect on sheep. The straw is sometimes fed to sheep. Buckwheat flour is proportionately richer in nutrients than is the whole seed, as the •rude fibre is prac tically all removed in milling. It is used very largely in the United States for making griddle cakes or pancakes, less commonly as a breadstuff and in other ways. is used in the manu facture of prepared flour. In lInssia buckwheat porridge is a common article of diet. Buckwheat flour is often adulterated with wheat middlings. This grain has been used for brewing and for the manufacture of distilled liquor.