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The Stock-Feeder's Manual

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Title: The Stock-Feeder's Manual

Author: Sir Charles Alexander Cameron


        
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[Illustration: PRIZE YEARLING SHORT-HORN BULL, "VICTOR EMMANUEL,"

THE PROPERTY OF LORD TALBOT DE MALAHIDE,

Was awarded the First Prize in his Section (there being sixteen
competitors), at the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society, held
at Belfast, in August, 1861. Calved June 24, 1860; sire, Prince
Duke the Second (16,731); dam, Turfoida, by Earl of Dublin (10,178);
gd., Rosina, by Gray Friar (9,172); ggd., Hinda, by Little John (4,232).]






THE STOCK-FEEDER'S MANUAL.


  THE CHEMISTRY OF FOOD IN RELATION TO
  THE BREEDING AND FEEDING OF LIVE STOCK.


BY CHARLES A. CAMERON, Ph.D., M.D.,

    Licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians
    in Ireland; Honorary Corresponding Member of the New York
    State Agricultural Society; Member of the Agricultural
    Society of Belgium; Professor of Hygiene or Political
    Medicine in the Royal College of Surgeons; Professor of
    Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in Steevens' Hospital
    and Medical College; Lecturer on Chemistry in the Ledwich
    School of Medicine; Analyst to the City of Dublin; Chemist
    to the County of Kildare Agricultural Society, the Queen's
    County Agricultural Society, c.; Member of the International
    Jury of the Paris Exhibition, 1867; Editor of the
    "Agricultural Review;" one of the Editors of the "Irish
    Farmer's Gazette;" Author of the "Chemistry of Agriculture,"
    "Sugar and the Sugar Duties," &c. &c.


  LONDON AND NEW YORK:
  CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN.
  1868.

[_All rights reserved._]



  LONDON
  CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS,
  LUDGATE HILL, E. C.



  THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE
  Dedicated
  TO

  THE RIGHT HONORABLE
  THE LORD TALBOT DE MALAHIDE, F.R.S.,
  _President of the Royal Irish Academy, &c. &c. &c._,

  ONE OF THE MOST ENLIGHTENED AND LIBERAL PROMOTERS
  OF AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS.

  THE AUTHOR IS UNDER MANY OBLIGATIONS TO HIS LORDSHIP, FOR
  WHICH HE CAN MAKE NO RETURN SAVE THIS PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT
  OF HIS INDEBTEDNESS.




PREFACE.


Some papers on the Chemistry of Food, read before the Royal Agricultural
Society of Ireland and the Athy Farmers' Club, and a few articles on the
Management of Live Stock, published in the _Weekly Agricultural Review_,
constitute the basis of this Work. It describes the nature of the food
used by the domesticated animals, explains the composition of the animal
tissues, and treats generally upon the important subject of nutrition.
The most recent analyses of all the kinds of food usually consumed by
the animals of the farm are fully stated; and the nutritive values of
those substances are in most instances given. Some information is
afforded relative to the breeds and breeding of live stock; and a
division of the Work is wholly devoted to the consideration of the
economic production of "meat, milk, and butter."

Within the last twenty years the processes of chemical analysis have
been so much improved, that the composition of organic bodies is now
determined with great accuracy. The analyses of foods made from twenty
to fifty years ago, possess now but little value. In this Work the
analyses of vegetables quoted are chiefly those recently performed by the
distinguished Scotch chemist, Dr. Thomas Anderson, and by Dr. Voelcker.
The Author believes that in no other Work of moderate size are there so
many analyses of food substances given, and ventures to hope that the
success of this Work may fully justify the belief that a "handy" book
containing such information as that above mentioned, is much required
by stock feeders.

  _102, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin_,
    April, 1868.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                                   PAGE

INTRODUCTION: History of Agriculture--Agricultural Statistics--Imports
  of Live Stock

                                                                      1

PART I. ON THE GROWTH AND COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS.

SECTION I. ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. Functions of Plants. Animal
  Life.--SECTION II. COMPOSITION OF ORGANIC SUBSTANCES. Elements of
  Organic Bodies. Proximate Composition of Organic Substances.--SECTION III.
  USE OF FAT IN THE ANIMAL ECONOMY. Fatty Food necessary in Cold Climates.
  Fat Equivalents.--SECTION IV. RELATION BETWEEN THE COMPOSITION OF AN
  ANIMAL AND THAT OF ITS FOOD. Tables of Experimental Results.--SECTION V.
  RELATION BETWEEN THE QUANTITY OF FOOD CONSUMED BY AN ANIMAL AND
  THE INCREASE OF ITS WEIGHT, OR OF THE AMOUNT OF ITS WORK. Weights
  of Foods necessary to sustain a Man's Life for twenty-four hours.
  Value of Manure.

                                                                      8

PART II. ON THE BREEDING AND BREEDS OF STOCK.

SECTION I. THE BREEDING OF STOCK.--SECTION II. THE BREEDS OF STOCK.
  The Form of Animals. _Breeds of the Ox._ Shorthorns. Devons.
  Herefords. Ayrshires. Polled Cattle. Kyloes. Long-horned.
  Kerrys. Alderneys. _Sheep._ The Leicester. Lincoln. Cotswold.
  Cheviot. Southdown. Shropshire. Blackfaced. _Breeds of the
  Pig._ Berkshire. Yorkshire. _Breeds of the Horse._ Clydesdales.
  Suffolk Punch. Hunters and Racers.

                                                                     47

PART III. ON THE MANAGEMENT OF LIVE STOCK.

SECTION I. THE OX. Breeding Cows. Wintering of Young Stock. Shelter
  of Stock. Milch Cows. Stall Feeding. Cost of Maintaining Animals.
  Cooking and Bruising Food. Value for Feeding Purposes of various
  Foods. Bedding Cattle.--SECTION II. THE SHEEP. Breeding Ewes.
  Yeaning. Rearing of Lambs. Sheep Feeding. Sheep Dips.--SECTION III. THE
  PIG. Young Pigs. Store Pigs. Fattening Pigs.--SECTION IV. THE HORSE.
  Foals. Dietaries for the Horse.

                                                                     74

PART IV. MEAT, MILK, AND BUTTER.

SECTION I. MEAT. Quality of Meat. Is very Fat Meat Unwholesome?
  Diseased Meat.--SECTION II. MILK. Composition of Milk of Different
  Animals. Yield of Milk. Preserved Milk.--SECTION III. BUTTER. History
  of Butter. Irish Butter. Composition of Butter. The Butter
  Manufacture.

                                                                    112

PART V. ON THE COMPOSITION AND VALUE OF VEGETABLE FOODS.

SECTION I. THE MONEY VALUE OF FOOD SUBSTANCES.--SECTION II. PROXIMATE
  CONSTITUENTS OF VEGETABLES. Starch. Sugar. Inulin. Gum. Pectin.
  Cellulose. Oils and Fats. Stearin. Margarin. Olein. Palmitin.
  Albumen. Fibrin. Legumin.--SECTION III. GREEN FOOD. The
  Grasses. Schroeder Brome. Tussac Grass. The Clovers. Leguminous
  Plants--Vetch, Sainfoin, &c. The Yellow Lupine. Rib Grass Plantain.
  Ergot in Grasses. Holcus Saccharatus. Green Rye. Buckwheat. Rape.
  Mustard. Comfrey. Chicory. Yarrow. Melons and Marrows. Cabbage.
  Furze.--SECTION IV. STRAW AND HAY. _Straw._ Anderson's, Voelcker's,
  and Cameron's Analyses of Straws. Feeding Experiments with Straw.
  Relative Values of Straw and Oil-cake. _Hay._ Composition of the
  Hay of different Grasses. Over-ripening of Hay. Damaged Hay and
  Straw.--SECTION V. ROOTS AND TUBERS. _Turnips._ Swedish. White
  Globe. Aberdeen Yellow. Purple-top. Norfolk Bell. Greystone.
  Turnip Tops. Analyses of Turnips. Mangel Wurtzel. Chemistry of
  the Mangel. Stripping Leaves off the Mangel. Beet-root. Parsnip.
  Carrot. Kohl-rabi. Analyses of Kohl-rabi. Radish. The Radish as
  a Field Crop. Composition of Radish. Jerusalem Artichoke: Advantages
  of Cultivating it. Analysis of Jerusalem Artichoke. Potato: Analyses
  of six varieties. Feeding Value of Potatoes.--SECTION VI. SEEDS. _Wheat._
  Analyses of Wheat, Flour, Bran, and Husks. Over-ripening of
  Grain. Wheat a Costly Food. Analyses of Barley, Oat Grain, Indian
  Corn, Rye, Rice, Rice-dust, and Buckwheat. Malted Corn. Voelcker's
  Analyses of Malt and Barley. Experiments of Thompson, Lawes, &c.,
  with Malt. Malt Combings. _Leguminous Seeds._ Beans. Composition
  of Common Beans, Foreign Beans, Peas. Lentils and Winter Tares.
  _Oil Seeds._ Rape Seeds. Experiments with Rapeseed. Flax Bolls.
  Composition of Linseed, Rape-seed, Hemp-seed, and Cotton-seed.
  Fenugreek Seed.--SECTION VII. OIL-CAKES AND OTHER ARTIFICIAL FOODS.
  Composition of Linseed, Rape-seed, Cotton-seed, and Poppy-seed
  Cake. Linseed-cake. Adulteration of Linseed-cake. Rape-cake.
  Feeding Experiments with Rape-cake. Adulterations of Rape-cake.
  Cotton-seed Cake. Analyses of Decorticated Cotton-seed Cake.
  Palm-nut Meal: its Composition and Nutritive Properties. Locust,
  or Carob Bean: its Composition. Dates. Brewers' Dregs and
  Distillery Wash. Molasses and Treacle.--SECTION VIII. CONDIMENTAL FOOD.
  Lawes' Experiments with Thorley's Food. Analyses of Condimental
  Food. Formula for a Tonic Food.--SECTION IX. TABLES OF THE ANALYSES
  OF THE ASHES OF PLANTS.

                                                                    147

APPENDIX. AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. Numbers of Live Stock in the United
  Kingdom. Value of the Agriculture Products of Great Britain.

                                                                    254






THE CHEMISTRY OF FOOD.




INTRODUCTION.


When Virgil composed his immortal "Bucolics," and Varro indited his
profound Essays on Agriculture, the inhabitants of the British Islands
were almost completely ignorant of the art of cultivating the soil.
The rude spoils torn from the carcasses of savage animals protected the
bodies of their hardly less savage victors; and the produce of the chase
served almost exclusively to nourish the hardy frames of the ancient
Celtic hunters. In early ages wild beasts abounded in the numerous and
extensive forests of Britain and Ireland; but men were few, for the
conditions under which the maintenance of a dense population is possible
did not then exist. As civilisation progressed, men rapidly multiplied,
and the demand for food increased. The pursuit of game became merely the
pastime of the rich; and tame sheep and oxen furnished meat to the lowly
as well as to the great. Nor were the fruits of the earth neglected; for
during the latter days of the dominion of the Romans, England raised
large quantities of corn. Gradually the food of the people, which at
first was almost purely animal, became chiefly vegetable. The shepherds,
who had supplanted the hunters, became less numerous than the tillers of
land; and the era of tillage husbandry began.

At present the great mass of the rural population of these countries
subsist almost exclusively upon vegetable aliment--a diet which poverty,
and not inclination, prescribes for them. Were the flesh of animals
the staple food of the British peasantry, their numbers would not be
nearly so large as they now are, for a given area of land is capable of
sustaining a far larger number of vegetarians than of meat eaters. The
Chinese are by no means averse to animal food, but they are so numerous,
that they are in general obliged to content themselves on a purely
vegetable diet.

In the manufacturing districts of Great Britain, there are several
millions of people whose condition in relation to food is somewhat
different from that of the small farmer and agricultural laborer. The
artizans employed in our great industries are comparatively well paid
for their toil; and the results of their labor place within their reach
a fair share of animal food. This section of the population is rapidly
increasing, and consequently is daily augmenting the demand for meat.
The rural population is certainly not increasing; rather the reverse.
Less manual labor is now expended in the operations of agriculture, and
even horses are retiring before the advance of the steam plough. The
only great purely vegetable-feeding class is diminishing, and the upper,
the middle, and the artizan classes--the beef and mutton eating sections
of society--are rapidly increasing. It is clear, then, that we are
threatened with a revival of the pastoral age, and that in one way, at
least, we are returning to the condition of our ancestors, whose staple
food consisted of beef, mutton, and pork.

And here two questions arise. How long shall we be able to supply the
increasing demand for meat? How long shall we be able to compete with
the foreign feeders? These are momentous queries for the British farmer,
and I trust they may be solved in a satisfactory manner. At any time
during the present century the foreign or colonial grower of wheat could
have undersold the British producer of that article, were the latter not
protected by a tariff; but cattle could not, as a general rule, be
imported into Great Britain at a cheaper rate than they could be
produced at home. Were there no corn imported, it is certain that the
price of bread would be greater than it is now, even if the grain
harvests had been better than they have been for some years past. A bad
cereal harvest in England raises the price of flour, but only to a small
and strictly limited extent, because, practically, there is no limit
to the amount of bread-stuffs procurable from abroad. When, on the
contrary, the turnip crop fails, or that excessive drought greatly
curtails the yield of grass, the price of meat and butter increases
greatly, and is but slightly modified by the importation of foreign
stock.

Hitherto the difficulty of transit has been so great that we have only
derived supplies of live stock from countries situated at a short
distance, such as Holstein and Holland. Vast herds of cattle are fed
with but little expense in America, and myriads of sheep are maintained
cheaply in Australia; but the immense distances which intervene between
our country and those remote and sparsely populated regions have,
hitherto, prevented the superabundant supply of animal food produced
therein from being available to the teeming population of the British
Isles. Should, however, any cheap mode of conveying live stock, or even
their flesh, from those and similarly circumstanced countries be
devised, it might render the production of meat in Britain a far less
profitable occupation than it is now. That we are increasing the area
from whence we draw our supplies of live stock is evident from the fact,
that within the last two years enormous numbers of horned stock have
been imported from Spain. In that extensive country there are noble
breeds of the ox; and it would appear that very large numbers of animals
could be annually exported, without depriving the inhabitants of a due
supply of bovine meat. As Spain is not very distant, it is likely that
this traffic will be increased, and that in a short time we shall be as
well supplied with Spanish beef as we are now provided with French
flour. Meat is at present dear, and is likely to continue so for some
time; but still it is evident that, sooner or later, the British feeders
will come into keen competition with the foreign producer of meat, and
that the price of their commodity will consequently fall. The mere
probability of such a state of things, were there no other reason,
should induce the feeder to devote increased attention to the
improvement of his stock, and to discover more economical methods of
feeding them. There is still much to be learned relative to the precise
nutritive values of the various feeding stuffs. The proper modes of
cooking, or otherwise preparing, food, are still to be satisfactorily
determined; and there are many very important questions in relation to
the breeding of stock yet unanswered.

It is but fair to admit that the farmer is earnestly endeavouring to
improve his art, and that he is willing, nay anxious, to obtain the
co-operation of scientific men, in order to increase his knowledge of
the theory as well as the practice of his ancient calling. Indeed, he
not only admits the utility of science in agriculture, but often places
an undue degree of value upon the theories of the chemist, of the
botanist, and of the geologist. This is encouraging to the men of
science; but, on the other hand, they must admit that by far the greater
portion of the sum of human knowledge has been derived from the
experience and observation of men utterly unacquainted with science, in
the ordinary signification of that term. This portion of our knowledge
is also, in its practical application, the most valuable. In the most
important branch of industry--agriculture--the labors of the purely
scientific man have as yet borne but scant fruit; whilst the unaided
efforts of the husbandman have reclaimed from sterility extensive
tracts, and caused them to "blossom as the rose." That practical men
should have done so much, and scientific men so little, for agriculture,
may easily be explained. Countless millions of men, during many
thousands of years, have incessantly been occupied in improving the
processes of mechanical agriculture, which, as an _art_, has
consequently been brought to a high degree of perfection: but scientific
agriculture is a creation of almost our own time, and the number of its
cultivators is, and always has been, very small; all its theories cannot,
therefore, justly claim that degree of confidence which, as a rule, is
only reposed in the opinions founded on the experience of practical
workers in the field and in the feeding-house. Still, the farmer has
derived a great amount of useful information from the chemist and
physiologist; and they alone can explain to him the causes of the
various phenomena which the different branches of his art present. There
was a time when it was the fashion of the man of science to look down
with contempt, from the lofty pedestal on which he placed himself, upon
the lessons of practical experience read to him by the cultivator of the
soil; whilst at the same time the farmer treated as foolish visionaries
those who applied the teachings of science to the improvement of their
art. But this time has happily passed away. The scientific man no longer
despises the knowledge of the mere farmers, but turns to good account
the information derivable from their experience; whilst the farmer, on
the other side, has ceased to speak in contemptuous terms of mere "book
learning." It is to this happy combination of the theorist with the
practical man that the recent remarkable advance in agriculture is
chiefly due; and to it we may confidently look for improvement in the
economic production of meat and butter, and for the enlargement of our
knowledge of the relative value of food substances.

  STATEMENT OF THE NUMBER OF LIVE STOCK IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

  ---------+------------------------------------+
           |         Enumerated, 1866.          |
           +-----------+------------+-----------+
           |  Cattle.  |   Sheep.   |   Pigs.   |
           +-----------+------------+----+------+
  England  | 3,307,034 | 15,124,541 | 2,066,299 |
  Wales    |   541,401 |  1,668,663 |   191,604 |
  Islands  |    17,700 |     57,685 |    22,887 |
  Scotland |   937,411 |  5,255,077 |   219,716 |
  Ireland  | 3,493,414 |  3,688,742 | 1,299,893 |
           +-----------+------------+-----------+
    Total  | 8,316,960 | 25,794,708 | 3,800,399 |
  ---------+-----------+------------+-----------+

  ---------+------------------------------------+
           |          Estimated, 1865.          |
           +-----------+------------+-----------+
           |  Cattle.  |   Sheep.   |  Pigs.    |
           +-----------+------------+-----------+
  England  | 3,422,165 | 18,691,088 | 2,363,724 |
  Wales    |   ----    |    ----    |   ----    |
  Islands  |   ----    |    ----    |   ----    |
  Scotland |   974,437 |  5,683,168 |   146,354 |
  Ireland  | 3,493,414 |  3,688,742 | 1,299,893 |
           +-----------+------------+-----------+
    Total  | 7,890,016 | 28,062,998 | 3,809,971 |
  ---------+-----------+------------+-----------+


  STATEMENT OF THE POPULATION AND NUMBER OF LIVE STOCK IN THE
  UNITED KINGDOM AND VARIOUS FOREIGN COUNTRIES, ACCORDING TO
  THE LATEST RETURNS.

  +--------------+-------+----------+------------------------------+----------+----------+
  |              |Date of|Population|           Cattle.            |          |          |
  | Countries.   |Returns|according |---------+---------+----------+  Sheep.  |  Pigs.   |
  |              |of Live|to Latest |  Cows.  |  Other  |  Total.  |          |          |
  |              |Stock. |Returns.  |         | Cattle. |          |          |          |
  +--------------+-------+----------+---------+---------+----------+----------+----------+
  |United Kingdom|1865-66|29,070,932|3,286,308|5,030,652| 8,316,960|25,795,708| 3,802,399|
  |Russia        |1859-63|74,139,394|    ...  |    ...  |25,444,000|45,130,800|10,097,000|
  |Denmark Proper|  1861 | 1,662,734|  756,834|  361,940| 1,118,774| 1,751,950|   300,928|
  |Sleswig       |  1861 |   421,486|  217,751|  172,250|   390,001|   362,219|    87,867|
  |Holstein      |  1861 |   561,831|  198,310|   92,062|   290,372|   165,344|    82,398|
  |Sweden        |  1860 | 3,859,728|1,112,944|  803,714| 1,916,658| 1,644,156|   457,981|
  |Prussia       |  1862 |18,491,220|3,382,703|2,251,797| 5,634,500|17,428,017| 2,709,709|
  |Hanover       |  1861 | 1,880,070|    ...  |    ...  |   949,179| 2,211,927|   554,056|
  |Saxony        |  1861 | 2,225,240|  411,563|  226,897|   638,460|   371,986|   270,462|
  |Wurtemburg    |  1861 | 1,720,708|  466,758|  490,414|   957,172|   683,842|   216,965|
  |Grand Duchy   |       |          |         |         |          |          |          |
  | of Baden     |  1861 | 1,429,199|  348,418|  273,068|   621,486|   177,322|   307,198|
  | "  Hesse     |  1863 |   853,315|  187,442|  129,211|   316,653|   231,787|   195,596|
  | "  Nassau    |  1864 |   468,311|  116,421|   84,224|   200,645|   152,584|    65,979|
  |     Mecklenb.|       |          |         |         |          |          |          |
  | "  Schwerin  |  1857 |   539,258|  197,622|   69,215|   266,837| 1,198,450|   157,522|
  | "  Oldenburg |  1852 |   279,637|    ...  |    ...  |   219,843|   295,322|    87,336|
  |Holland       |  1864 | 3,618,459|  943,214|  390,673| 1,333,887|   930,136|   294,636|
  |Belgium       |  1856 | 4,529,461|    ...  |    ...  | 1,257,649|   583,485|   458,418|
  |France        |  1862 |37,386,313|5,781,465|8,415,895|14,197,360|33,281,592| 5,246,403|
  |Spain         |  1865 |15,658,531|    ...  |    ...  | 2,904,598|22,054,967| 4,264,817|
  |Austria       |  1863 |36,267,648|6,353,086|7,904,030|14,257,116|16,964,236| 8,151,608|
  |Bavaria       |  1863 | 4,807,440|1,530,626|1,655,356| 3,185,882| 2,058,638|   926,522|
  |United States |  1860 |31,445,080|8,728,862|8,182,813|16,911,475|23,317,756|32,555,267|
  +--------------+-------+----------+---------+---------+----------+----------+----------+


  NUMBERS OF THE LIVE STOCK IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN
  DURING THE ELEVEN MONTHS ENDED 31st NOVEMBER, 1867.

  Bullocks, bulls, and cows                              150,518
  Calves                                                  20,720
  Sheep and lambs                                        504,514
  Pigs                                                    45,566
                                                        --------
                                                         721,318

  AMOUNT OF ANIMAL FOOD IMPORTED DURING SAME PERIOD.

  Bacon and hams                              cwts.      452,132
  Salt beef                                    "         163,638
  Salt pork                                    "         123,257
  Butter                                       "       1,000,095
  Lard                                         "         213,599
  Cheese                                       "         798,267
  Eggs                                               373,042,000

I am indebted to Professor Ferguson, Chief of the Veterinary Department
of the Irish Privy Council Office, for the following statement:--

  RETURN OF HORNED CATTLE EXPORTED FROM THE SEVERAL IRISH
  PORTS AT WHICH VETERINARY INSPECTORS HAVE BEEN APPOINTED,
  AND CERTIFIED AS FREE FROM DISEASE, FROM THE 18th OF
  NOVEMBER, 1866, TO THE 16th OF NOVEMBER, 1867 (52 WEEKS).

  Fat Stock                                              187,483
  Store Stock                                            317,331
  Breeding and Dairy Stock                                36,599
                                                        --------
            Total                                        541,413
                                                        ========




PART I.

ON THE GROWTH AND COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS.


SECTION I.

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE.

_Functions of Plants._--It is the primary function of plants to convert
the inorganic matter of the soil and air into organised structures
of a highly complex nature. The food of plants is purely mineral, and
consists chiefly of water, carbonic acid, and ammonia. Water is composed
of the elements oxygen and hydrogen; carbonic acid is a compound of
oxygen and carbon; and ammonia is formed of hydrogen and nitrogen. These
four substances are termed the _organic elements_, because they form by
far the larger portion--sometimes the whole--of organic bodies. The
combustible portion of plants and animals is composed of the organic
elements; the incombustible part is made up of potassium, sodium, and
the various other elements enumerated in another page. The organic
elements are furnished chiefly by the atmosphere, and the incombustible
matters are supplied by the soil.

Water in the state of vapor forms, according to the temperature and
other conditions of the atmosphere, from a half per cent. to four and a
half per cent. of the weight of that fluid--about 1.25 per cent. being
the average; carbonic acid exists in it to the extent of 1/2000th; and
ammonia forms a minute portion of it--according to Dr. Angus Smith, one
grain weight in 412.42 cubic feet of air (of a town), or 0.000453 per
cent. It is remarkable that the most abundant constituents of atmospheric
air--oxygen and nitrogen--are not assimilable by plants, although these
elements enter largely into the composition of vegetable substances. In
the soil, also, the part which ministers to the wants of vegetables is
relatively quite insignificant in amount.

Plants are unendowed with organs of locomotion, their food must
therefore be within easy reach. Every breeze wafts gaseous nutriment to
their expanded leaves, and their rootlets ramify throughout the soil in
search of appropriate mineral aliment. But no matter how abundant, or
however easy of reach may be the food of plants, the vegetable organism
is incapable of partaking of it unless under the influence of light.
Exposed to this potent stimulus, the plant collects the gaseous carbonic
acid and the vaporous water, solidifies them, decomposes them, and
combines their elements into new and organised forms. In effecting these
changes--in conferring vitality upon the atoms of lifeless matter--the
plant acts merely as the _mechanism_, the light is the _force_. As the
work performed by the steam-engine is proportionate to the amount of
force developed by the combustion of the fuel beneath its boiler,
so is the rapidity of the elaboration of organic substances by plants
proportionate to the amount of sunlight to which they are exposed. It is
an axiom that matter is indestructible; we may alter its form as often
as we please, but we cannot destroy a particle of it. It is the same
with _force_: we may convert one kind of it into another--heat into
light, or magnetism into electricity--but our power ends there; we can
only cause force, or _motion_, to pass from one of its conditions to
another, but its _quantity_ can never be diminished by the power of man.

The principle of the Conservation of the Forces gives us a clear
explanation of the fact that animals can obtain their food only through
the medium of the vegetable kingdom. Plants are stationary mechanisms;
they have no need to develop motive power, as animals have, in moving
themselves from place to place. Their temperature is, we may say, the
same as that of the medium in which they exist. Such beings as plants
do not, therefore, require the expenditure of force to maintain their
vitality; on the contrary, their mechanisms are, for a beneficent
purpose, constructed for the _accumulation_ of force. The growing
plant absorbs, together with carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, a
proportionate amount of light, heat, and the various other subtile
forces which have their abiding place in the sun-beam--

                              "That golden chain,
  Whose strong embrace holds heaven and earth and main."

Co-incidentally with the conversion of the mineral constituents of the
food of plants into organised structures--albumen, fibre, and such
like substances--the light, and the heat, and the various other forces
likewise suffer a change. Although the precise nature of the new force
into which they are converted is still a mystery--one, too, which may
never be revealed to us--still we know sufficient of it to satisfy
us that it can only exist in connection with organic or organised
structures. It is owing to its presence that the elements of these
structures (the natural state of which is mineral) are bound together
in what may be aptly designated a constrained state; or, as Liebig
aptly expresses it, like the matter in a bent spring. So long as the
organic structure retains its form, it will be a reservoir of latent
force--which will manifest itself in some form during the recoil of the
atoms of the matter forming the structure to their original mineral, or
statical condition: so the bent spring, when the pressure is removed,
returns to its original straight form.

_Animal Life._--The chief manifestation of the life of a plant is the
accumulation of force; very different are the functions of animal life.
It is only by the continuous _expenditure_ of force that the vitality of
animals is preserved; the heat of a man's body, his power of locomotion,
the performance of his daily toil, even his very faculty of thought, are
all dependent upon, and to a great extent proportionate to, the amount
of organised matter disorganised in his body. It is by the conversion
of this organised matter into its original mineral state of water,
carbonic acid, and ammonia, that the force originally expended in
arranging, through the agency of plants, its atoms, is again restored,
chiefly in the form of heat and animal motive power.

Animals, as a class, are completely dependent upon vegetables for
their existence. There is every reason to believe that the most lowly
organised beings in the scale of animal life, even those of so
simple a structure as to have been long regarded as vegetables or as
plant-animals, are incapable of organising mineral matter. The so-called
vegetative life of animals--for I believe the term to be exceedingly
inexact--is applied to their growth, that is, to the increase in their
weight. This increase takes place by their power of reorganising, or
of assimilating to the nature of their own organisms, certain of the
substances elaborated by plants, and destined to become food for
animals.


SECTION II.

COMPOSITION OF ORGANIC SUBSTANCES.

_Elements of Organic Bodies._--The number of distinct kinds of
substances--each distinguishable from all the others by the peculiarity
of its properties, taken as a whole--is exceedingly great, yet all
these substances are resolvable into a very small number of bodies.
As an illustration, I shall take a well-known substance, common
green copperas, or, as the chemists term it, protosulphate of iron.
By submitting this compound to the process termed chemical analysis,
two other kinds of matter may be obtained from it, namely, oxide of iron
and oil of vitrol, or sulphuric acid. If we continued this process--if
we submitted the acid and the oxide to analysis--we could separate the
former into sulphur and oxygen, and the latter into iron and oxygen.
Now, by these means we could demonstrate the compound nature of
copperas; we could prove that it was _proximately_ composed of sulphuric
acid and oxide of iron; and, _ultimately_, of iron, sulphur, and oxygen.

Iron, sulphur, and oxygen, are elementary, or simple bodies. They cannot
be decomposed; they cannot be analysed. Torture them as we will in our
crucibles; expose them as we please to the highest temperature of a wind
furnace, or to the more intense heat evolved by a powerful galvanic
battery; subject them to the influence of any agent, or force, or
process we may choose, and still they will yield nothing but iron,
sulphur, and oxygen: hence these undecomposable bodies are regarded as
_elements_, or simple substances. So far as our knowledge extends, there
are about sixty-six of these undecomposable bodies, of which about one
half occurs in but exceedingly minute quantities, and a considerable
number of the others exists in comparatively small amounts. As by far
the greater proportion of compounds is made up of two or more of about
a dozen elementary bodies, it would at first sight appear as if the
distinct kinds of compounds which exist, or which may be called into
existence by the chemist, must be limited to, at most, a realisable
number; but the fact is there is no practical limit to the variety of
substances which may be artificially formed. Every difference in the
mode of the arrangement of the constituent atoms of a compound, causes
its metamorphosis into another kind of substance. To prove that the
number of these changes is bounded by no narrow limits, I need but refer
to the rules of Permutation, which demonstrate that twelve letters of
the alphabet may be arranged in no fewer than 479,000,000 different
ways.[1] The elements are the letters of Nature's alphabet, their
compounds are the words of the language of Creation. The combinations
of sounds and of signs which express the ideas and sensations of man may
be limited to millions; but numberless are the hieroglyphs by which the
Divine wisdom and beneficence is inscribed on the pages of the
magnificent volume of Nature.

Of the sixty-six elementary bodies, not more than a dozen occur
commonly in animal and vegetable substances; these are Oxygen, Hydrogen,
Nitrogen, Carbon, Sulphur, Phosphorus, Chlorine, Silicium, Potassium,
Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, and Iron. In addition to these, Iodine, and
sometimes Bromine, are found in plants which grow in or near the sea;
and the former element has also been detected in some of the lower
animals, and in land plants. Manganese, Lithium, Caesium, Rubidium,
and a few others of the simple bodies, occasionally occur in plants and
animals, but I believe their presence therein is always accidental.

_Proximate Composition of Animal Substances._--The differences between
vegetable and animal substances are often more apparent than real.
Indeed many of the more important of these substances are almost
identical in composition. The albumen which coagulates when the juices
of vegetables are boiled, is identical with the albumen of the white
of eggs; the fibrine of wheat is in no respect chemically different
from the fibrine, or clot, of the blood; and, lastly, the legumine,
or _vegetable caseine_, of peas is almost indistinguishable from the
curd of milk, or _animal caseine_. But not only has chemical research
demonstrated the identity of the albumen, fibrine, and caseine of
vegetables with three of the more important constituents of animals, it
has gone a step further, and proved that they differ from each other in
but a few unimportant respects. They are unquestionably convertible into
each other[2] within the animal organism; and their functions, as elements
of nutrition, are almost, if not quite, identical.

Exclusive of the blood, which contains the elements of every part of
the body, the animal organism is composed of three distinct classes of
substances--namely, _nitrogenous_, _non-nitrogenous_, and _mineral_.
All of these constituents, or substances capable of being converted
into them, must exist in the food. Certain articles, for example, milk,
contains all of them; but in others, for instance, butter, only one of
these substances is found. The nitrogenous part of the body embraces the
muscles, or lean flesh, the gelatine of the bones, and the skin and its
appendages--such as hair and horns; the non-nitrogenous constituents are
its fat and oil; and its mineral matter is found chiefly in the bony
framework. These constituents are not, however, isolated: the mineral
matter, no doubt, accumulates in certain parts, but in small quantities
it is found in every portion of the body; and although the fat forms a
distinct tissue, the muscles of the leanest animal are never free from
a sensible proportion of it.

Albumen, fibrine, and caseine are the principal nitrogenous constituents
of food, and as they are employed in the reparation of the nitrogenous
tissues of the animal body, they have been termed _flesh-formers_.

The fat and oil of animals are derived either from vegetable oil and
fat, or from some such substance as starch or sugar. The constituents
of food which form fat are termed _fat-formers_, and sometimes
_heat-givers_ or _respiratory elements_, from the notion that their
slow combustion in the animal body is the chief cause of its high
temperature.

The mineral elements of the body are furnished principally by the
varieties of food which contain nitrogen. The whey of milk is rich in
them; but they do not exist in pure butter, in starch, or in sugar.

Fat is a much more abundant constituent of the animal body than is
generally supposed, That this substance should constitute the greater
portion of the weight of an obese pig seems probable enough; but few
are aware that even in a lean sheep there is 50 per cent. more fat than
lean.

For a very accurate knowledge of the relative proportions of the fatty,
nitrogenous, and mineral constituents of the carcasses of animals used
as human food, we are indebted to Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert. Before
these investigators turned their attention to this subject, it had
scarcely attracted the notice of scientific men; but a notion appears to
have been current, amongst non-scientific people, at least, that in all,
save the fattest animals, the lean flesh greatly preponderated over the
fat. That this idea was unsustained by a foundation of fact, has been
clearly proved by the results of an investigation[3] undertaken a few
years ago by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert--an investigation which I cannot
avoid characterising as one of the most laborious and apparently
trustworthy on record. The mere statement of the results of this inquiry
occupies 187 pages of one of the huge volumes of the Transactions of the
Royal Society--a fact which best indicates the immensity of the labour
which these gentlemen imposed upon themselves, and which, independently
of their other and numerous contributions to scientific agriculture,
entitles their names to most honourable mention in the annals of
science.

I shall now briefly advert to a few of the more important facts
established by Lawes and Gilbert. From a large number of oxen, sheep,
and pigs, on which feeding experiments were being conducted, ten
individuals were selected. These were, a fat calf, a half-fat ox, a
moderately fat ox, a fat lamb, a store sheep, a half-fat old sheep, a
fat sheep, a very fat sheep, a store pig, and a fat pig. These animals
were killed, and the different organs and parts of their bodies were
separately weighed and analysed. The results were, that, with the
exception of the calf, all the animals contained, respectively, more fat
than lean. The fat ox and the fat lamb contained each three times as
much fat as lean flesh, and the proportion of the fatty matters to the
nitrogenous constituents of the carcass of the very fat sheep was as 4
to 1. In the pig the fat greatly preponderated over the lean; the store
pig containing three times as much, and the fat pig five times as much
fat as lean.

That part of the animal which is consumed as food by man, is termed the
_carcass_ by the butcher, and contains by far the greater portion of
the fat of the animal. The _offal_, in the language of the butcher,
constitutes those parts which are not commonly consumed as human food,
at least by the well-to-do classes. In calves, oxen, lambs, and sheep,
the offal embraces the skin, the feet, and the head, and all the
internal organs, excepting the kidneys and their fatty envelope. The
offal of the pig is made up of all the internal organs, excepting the
kidneys and kidney fat. It is the relative proportion of fat in the
carcasses analysed by Lawes and Gilbert that I have stated; but as the
nitrogenous matters occur in greatest quantity in the offal, it is
necessary that the relative proportions of the constituents of the body,
taken as a whole, should be considered. On an average, then, it will be
found that a fat fully-grown animal will contain 49 per cent. of water,
33 per cent. of dry fat, 13 per cent. of dry nitrogenous matter--muscles
separated from fat, hide, &c.--and 3 per cent. of mineral matter. In a
lean animal the average proportions of the various constituents will be
54 per cent. of water, 25-1/2 per cent. dry fat, 17 per cent. of dry
nitrogenous substances, and 3-1/2 per cent. of mineral matter. In the
following table these proportions are set forth.


  SUMMARY OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE TEN ANIMALS--SHOWING THE
  PER-CENTAGES OF MINERAL MATTER, DRY NITROGENOUS COMPOUNDS,
  FAT, TOTAL DRY SUBSTANCE, AND WATER.

  1st. In Fresh Carcass. 2nd. In Fresh Offal (equal Sum of Parts,
  excluding Contents of Stomachs and Intestines). 3rd. In Entire
  Animal (Fasted Live-weight, including therefore the weight of
  Contents of Stomachs and Intestines).

                              +-----------------------------------------+
                              | KEY:                                    |
                              | A.--Mineral matter.                     |
                              | B.--Dry nitrogenous compounds.          |
                              | C.--Fat.                                |
                              | D.--Dry substance.                      |
                              | E.--Water.                              |
                              | F.--Contents of viscera.                |
                              |                                         |
  ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
                              | Per cent. in Carcass.                   |
     DESCRIPTION              +--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
      OF ANIMAL.              |    A.  |    B.  |   C.  |   D.  |   E.  |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Fat calf                    |   4.48 |   16.6 |  16.6 |  37.7 |  62.3 |
  Half-fat ox                 |   5.56 |   17.8 |  22.6 |  46.0 |  54.0 |
  Fat ox                      |   4.56 |   15.0 |  34.8 |  54.4 |  45.6 |
  Fat lamb                    |   3.63 |   10.9 |  36.9 |  51.4 |  48.6 |
  Store sheep                 |   4.36 |   14.5 |  23.8 |  42.7 |  57.3 |
  Half-fat old sheep          |   4.13 |   14.9 |  31.3 |  50.3 |  49.7 |
  Fat sheep                   |   3.45 |   11.5 |  45.4 |  60.3 |  39.7 |
  Extra fat sheep             |   2.77 |    9.1 |  55.1 |  67.0 |  33.0 |
  Store pig                   |   2.57 |   14.0 |  28.1 |  44.7 |  55.3 |
  Fat pig                     |   1.40 |   10.5 |  49.5 |  61.4 |  38.6 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of all                |   3.69 |   13.5 |  34.4 |  51.6 |  48.4 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of 8 of the half-fat, |        |        |       |       |       |
  fat, and very fat animals   |   3.75 |   13.3 |  36.5 |  53.6 |  46.4 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of 6 of the fat,      |        |        |       |       |       |
  and very fat animals        |   3.38 |   12.3 |  39.7 |  55.4 |  44.6 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+

  ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
                              | Per cent. in Offal.                     |
     Description              +--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
      of Animal.              |    A.  |    B.  |   C.  |   D.  |   E.  |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Fat calf                    |   3.41 |   17.1 |  14.6 |  35.1 |  64.9 |
  Half-fat ox                 |   4.05 |   20.6 |  15.7 |  40.4 |  59.6 |
  Fat ox                      |   3.40 |   17.5 |  26.3 |  47.2 |  52.8 |
  Fat lamb                    |   2.45 |   18.9 |  20.1 |  41.5 |  58.5 |
  Store sheep                 |   2.19 |   18.0 |  16.1 |  36.3 |  63.7 |
  Half-fat old sheep          |   2.72 |   17.7 |  18.5 |  38.9 |  61.1 |
  Fat sheep                   |   2.32 |   16.1 |  26.4 |  44.8 |  55.2 |
  Extra fat sheep             |   3.64 |   16.8 |  34.5 |  54.9 |  45.1 |
  Store pig                   |   3.07 |   14.0 |  15.0 |  32.1 |  67.9 |
  Fat pig                     |   2.97 |   14.8 |  22.8 |  40.6 |  59.4 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of all                |   3.02 |   17.2 |  21.0 |  41.2 |  58.8 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of 8 of the half-fat, |        |        |       |       |       |
  fat, and very fat animals   |   3.12 |   17.4 |  22.4 |  42.9 |  57.1 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+
  Means of 6 of the fat,      |        |        |       |       |       |
  and very fat animals        |   3.03 |   16.9 |  24.1 |  44.0 |  56.0 |
  ----------------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+-------+

  ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
                              | Per cent. in Entire Animal.             |
     Description              +------+------+------+------+------+------+
      of Animal.              |  A.  |  B.  |  C.  |  D.  |  F.  |  E.  |
  ----------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
  Fat calf                    | 3.80 | 15.2 | 14.8 | 33.8 | 3.17 | 63.8 |
  Half-fat ox                 | 4.66 | 16.6 | 19.1 | 40.3 | 8.19 | 51.5 |
  Fat ox                      | 3.92 | 14.5 | 30.1 | 48.5 | 5.98 | 45.5 |
  Fat lamb                    | 2.94 | 12.3 | 28.5 | 43.7 | 8.54 | 47.8 |
  Store sheep                 | 3.16 | 14.8 | 18.7 | 36.7 | 6.00 | 57.3 |
  Half-fat old sheep          | 3.17 | 14.0 | 23.5 | 40.7 | 9.05 | 50.2 |
  Fat sheep                   | 2.81 | 12.2 | 35.6 | 50.6 | 6.02 | 43.4 |
  Extra fat sheep             | 2.90 | 10.9 | 45.8 | 59.6 | 5.18 | 35.2 |
  Store pig                   | 2.67 | 13.7 | 23.3 | 39.7 | 5.22 | 55.1 |
  Fat pig                     | 1.65 | 10.9 | 42.2 | 54.7 | 3.97 | 41.3 |
  ----------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
  Means of all                | 3.17 | 13.5 | 28.2 | 44.9 | 6.13 | 49.0 |
  ----------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
  Means of 8 of the half-fat, |      |      |      |      |      |      |
  fat, and very fat animals   | 3.23 | 13.3 | 29.9 | 46.4 | 6.26 | 47.3 |
  ----------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
  Means of 6 of the fat,      |      |      |      |      |      |      |
  and very fat animals        | 3.00 | 12.7 | 32.8 | 48.5 | 5.48 | 46.0 |
  ----------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+



SECTION III.

USE OF FAT IN THE ANIMAL ECONOMY.

As fat forms so large a portion of the body, it is evident that
the part it plays in the animal economy must be a most important one.
The general opinion which prevails amongst scientific men as to its
physiological functions was originated by the celebrated Liebig.
According to his theory, the food of animals includes two distinct kinds
of substances--_plastic_[4] and _non-plastic_. The plastic materials are
composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and a little sulphur
and phosphorus. Albumen, fibrine, and casein are plastic elements of
nutrition; they form the lean flesh, or muscles, the membranes, and
cartilages, the gelatine of the bones, the skin, the hair, and, in
short, every part of the body which contains nitrogen. The _non-plastic_
elements of nutrition include fat, oil, starch, sugar, gum, and certain
constituents of fruits, such as pectine.

All non-plastic substances--and of each kind there are numerous
varieties--are capable of conversion, in the animal mechanism, into fat
and oil. The non-plastic food substances do not contain nitrogen, hence
they are commonly termed non-nitrogenous elements. The oily and fatty
matters contain a large proportion of carbon, their next most abundant
component is hydrogen, and they contain but little oxygen. Unlike the
plastic elements, they are--except the fats of the brain and nervous
tissue--altogether destitute of sulphur and phosphorus. The starchy,
saccharine, and gummy substances are composed of the same elements as
the fatty bodies, but they contain a higher proportion of oxygen.
According to Liebig, fat is used in the animal economy as a source of
internal heat. We all know that it is a most combustible body, and that
during its inflammation the most intense heat is developed. It is less
evident, but not less true, that heat is evolved during its slow
oxidation, or decay.

The more rapidly a body burns, the greater is the amount of heat evolved
by it in a _given time_; but the total amount of heat developed by a
specific weight of the body is the same, whether the combustion takes
place rapidly or slowly. An experiment performed with phosphorus
illustrates the case perfectly. If we burned two pieces of equal weight,
the one in oxygen, the other in atmospheric air, we should find that the
former would emit a light five times as brilliant as that evolved by the
latter, for the simple reason that its combustion would be five times as
rapid. The white, vapor-like matter into which phosphorus is converted
by its combustion, is termed _phosphoric acid_. It is composed of
phosphorus and oxygen. In forming an ounce of this compound, by the
direct oxidation, or combustion of phosphorus, the amount of force,
either as heat, or as heat and light, evolved is precisely the same,
whether the time expended in the process be a minute or a month.[5] If,
in the experiment I have described, we were to substitute two pieces of
fat for the fragments of phosphorus, the results would be precisely
similar. The fat burned in oxygen gas would emit intense light and heat;
but the total amount of these forces evolved would be neither greater
nor less than that developed during the slower and therefore less
brilliant combustion of the fat in ordinary atmospheric air. Now, as we
can demonstrate that an ounce of fat will emit a certain amount of heat,
if burned within a minute of time, and that neither a larger nor a
smaller amount will be developed if the combustion of the fat extend
over a period of five minutes, I think we may fairly assume that the
amount of heat evolved by the complete oxidation of a specific quantity
of fat is constant under all conditions, except, as I have already
explained, at high temperatures, when a portion of the heat is converted
into light.

In the animal organism fat is burned. The process of combustion no
doubt is a very slow one, but still the total amount of heat evolved
is just the same as if the fat were consumed in a furnace. When the
fat constituting a candle is burned, what becomes of it? Its elements,
carbon and hydrogen (we may disregard its small amount of oxygen)
combine with the oxygen of the air, and form carbonic acid gas and
water. What becomes of the fat consumed within the animal body? It also
is converted into carbonic acid gas and water. It is not difficult
to prove these statements to be facts. A candle will not burn in
atmospheric air which has been deprived of its oxygen, because there is
no substance present with which the elements of the taper can combine,
consequently the process of combustion cannot go on. Now, a man may in
one respect be compared with this taper. He is partly made up of fat;
that fat is consumed by the oxygen of the air, and the heat developed
thereby keeps the body warm. In the process of respiration oxygen is
introduced into the lungs, and from thence, by means of the blood
vessels, is conveyed throughout every part of the body. In some way, at
present not thoroughly understood, the elements of the fat combine with
the oxygen, and are converted into carbonic acid gas and water, which
are exhaled from the lungs and from the surface of the body.

Fat is a constituent of both animals and plants. The animal derives a
portion of its fat directly from the vegetable; but it possesses the
power of forming this substance from other organic bodies, such, for
example, as starch. Plants elaborate fat directly from the
minerals--carbonic acid gas, and water.

I have already explained that the growth of plants is, _caeteris
paribus_, directly proportionate to the amount of sunlight to which
they are exposed. Not less certainly is the force which constitutes the
sun-beam expended in grouping mineral atoms into organic forms, than is
the heat which converts water into steam. But in neither case is the
force destroyed. When the vaporous steam is condensed into the liquid
water, all the heat is restored, and becomes palpable. By the ultimate
decomposition of vegetable substances all the force expended on their
production is liberated, and, in some form, becomes manifest.

When the fat formed in the mechanisms of plants is decomposed in
the animal organism, two results follow:--The atoms of the fat are
re-converted to their original mineral, or statical conditions of
carbonic acid gas and water; and the force which maintained them in
their organic state is set free as heat, and its equivalent, motive
power.

One of the most useful instruments which the ingenuity of man has
devised, is the Thermometer. It is so familiarly known that I need
not describe it. This instrument does not enable us to estimate the
actual quantity of heat contained in a substance, but it indicates
the proportion of that subtile element which is _sensible_--that is
recognisable by the sense of touch. The dusky Hindu, clad in his single
cotton garment, and the Laplander in his suit of fur, are placed under
the most opposite conditions in relation to the heat of the sun--the
Indian is exposed during the whole year to Sol's most ardent beams,
whilst but a scant share of its genial rays goes to warm the body of
the Laplander. Now, if we placed the bulb of a thermometer beneath the
tongue of a Hindu, we would find the mercury to stand at 98 degrees on
Fahrenheit's scale, and if we repeated the experiment on a Laplander,
we would obtain an identical result. Numerous experiments of this
nature have been made on individuals in most parts of the world, and
the results have proved that the temperature of the blood of man is
98 degrees Fahrenheit, whether he be in India or at Nova Zembla, on
the _steppes_ of Russia, or the elevated _plateaus_ of America. This
invariability[6] of the temperature of the bodies of men and of all
other warm-blooded animals, appears the more wonderful when it it is
considered that the range of the temperature of the medium in which
they exist exceeds 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In India, the mercury in the
thermometer has been observed to stand at 145 degrees in the direct
sunlight, and at 120 degrees in the shade. In high latitudes the
temperature is sometimes so low as 100 degrees below zero. A Russian
army, in an expedition to China, in 1839, was exposed for several
successive days to a temperature of 42 degrees below zero, and suffered
severely in consequence.

The facts which I have cited clearly prove that the animal body
possesses the power of generating, or, to speak more correctly,
liberating heat, either from portions of its own mechanism or from
substances placed within that mechanism.

At one time it was the general belief amongst physiologists that one
portion of the food consumed by an animal was employed in repairing
the waste of its body, and the remaining part was burned as fuel,
evolving heat just in the same way as if it had been consumed in a
furnace. It was this theory that led to the classification of food into
flesh-formers, and heat-givers. It is now doubted if any portion of the
food be really burned in this way; and I, for one, think it far more
probable that, before its conversion into carbonic acid gas and water
(whereby, according to this theory, it develops the heat which keeps the
body warm), it first becomes assimilated, that is, becomes an integral
part of the animal body--blood, fat, muscle. Perhaps we would be
nearer the truth if we were to assume that heat is evolved during the
decomposition of both the nitrogenous and fatty constituents of the
body.

The constantly recurring contractions of the muscles must alone be a
source of much heat. The development of animal motive power is said to
be strictly proportionate to the amount of muscular tissue decomposed.
As the nitrogen of the latter is almost completely excreted under the
form of urea, the quantity of the latter daily eliminated from the
body of an animal is a measure of the decomposed muscular tissue, and
consequently of the amount of muscular power generated in the animal
organism.[7] The correspondence between the amount of the motive power
of an animal, and the quantity of effete nitrogen excreted from the
body, is limited to laboring men and to the lower animals. Strange as
it may appear, it is an incontrovertible fact that men whose pursuits
require the constant exercise of the intellectual faculties--lawyers,
writers, statesmen, students, scientific men, and other
brain-workers--excrete more urea than do men engaged in the most
physically laborious occupations. An activity of thoughts and ideas
involves a corresponding destruction of the tissues, and these require,
for their reparation, the consumption of food. Here, then, we have a
physical meaning for the common expression--"food for thought."

That the amount of heat developed in the animal organism, is
proportionate to the quantity of fatty matters (or of substances capable
of forming them) supplied to it in the shape of food, is a proposition
which admits of easy demonstration. The natives of warm regions do not
require the generation of much heat within their bodies, because the
temperature of the medium in which they exist is generally as high as,
or higher than, that of their blood. But as they must consume food for
the purpose of repairing the waste of their nitrogenous tissues, and as
every kind of food contains heat-producing elements, an excess of heat
is developed within their bodies, which, if allowed to accumulate, would
speedily produce fatal results. The means by which nature removes this
superabundant heat are admirably simple, as indeed all its contrivances
are. The skin is permeated with millions of pores, and through these
openings a large quantity of vapor is given off, and carries with it the
surplus heat. The pores are the orifices of minute convoluted tubes
which lie beneath the skin, and when straightened measure each about the
tenth of an inch, or, according to a writer in the _British and Foreign
Medico-Chirurgical Review_ (1859, page 349), the one-fifteenth of an
inch in length. According to Erasmus Wilson, the number of these tubes
which open into every square inch of the surface of the body is 2,800.
The total number of square inches on the surface of an average sized man
is 2,500, consequently the surface of his body is drained by not less
than twenty-eight miles of tubing, furnished with 7,000,000 openings.
The cooling of the body, by the evaporation of water from it, admits of
explanation by well-known natural laws. Water, in the state of vapor,
occupies a space 1,700 fold greater than it does in its liquid
condition. It is heat which causes its vaporous form, but it ceases to
be heat when it has accomplished this change in the condition of the
liquid; for, suffering itself an alteration, it passes into another form
of force--mechanical, or motive power. The heat generated within the
body is absorbed by the liquid water, the conversion of the latter into
vapor follows, and both the heat and the water, in their altered forms,
escape through the pores.

_Fatty food necessary in cold climates._--As a grave objection against
the chemical theory of heat, it has been urged that rice--the pabulum of
hundreds of millions of the inhabitants of tropical regions--contains an
exceedingly high proportion of heat-giving substances. I have, however,
great doubt as to rice ever forming the exclusive food of those people,
without their health being impaired in consequence of the deficiency in
that substance of the plastic elements of nutrition. Indeed I believe
it is a great mistake to assert that the natives of India live almost
exclusively on rice. This article, no doubt, forms a large proportion of
their food, but it is supplemented with pulse (the produce of leguminous
plants), which is rich in flesh-forming materials, also with dried fish,
butter, and various kinds of vegetable and animal food rich in nitrogen.
The innutritious nature of rice is clearly shown by its chemical
composition, and so large a quantity of it must the Hindu consume in
order to repair the waste of his body, that his stomach sometimes
acquires prodigious dimensions; hence the term "pot-bellied," so often
applied to the Indian ryot. I doubt very much, however, if the stomach
of the Hindu, large as it is, could accommodate a quantity of rice, the
combustion of which would produce a very excessive development of heat.
This substance, when cooked, contains a high proportion of water, the
evaporation of which carries off a large amount of the heat generated
by the combustion of its respiratory constituents. The amount of motive
power developed by the Hindu is small as compared with that which the
European is capable of exerting; hence he has less necessity for a
highly nitrogenous diet. On the whole, then, I am disposed to think
that the food of the natives of tropical climates contains sufficient
nitrogenous matters to effectually build up and keep in repair their
bodies; it also appears clear to me that the amount of heat developed
in their bodies is not excessive, and that it is readily disposed of
in converting the water, which enters so largely into their diet, into
vapor. The proportion of plastic to non-plastic elements in the diet
of the Hindu and of the well-fed European, is probably as follows:--

                     Nitrogenous.            Non-nitrogenous
                                         (calculated as starch.)

  Hindu                   1         to                9
  European                1         to                8


This statement does not quite correspond with Liebig's, who estimates
the proportion of nitrogenous to non-nitrogenous substances in rice as
10 to 123, in beef as ten to seventeen, and in veal as ten to one. The
results of Lawes and Gilbert's investigations, already alluded to, have,
however, dispelled the illusion that the plastic constituents of flesh
exceed its non-plastic. In the potato, which at one time constituted
more of the food of the Irish peasantry than rice does that of the
Hindu, the proportion of plastic to non-plastic materials is as 10 to
110. The results of some analyses of the food grains consumed in the
Presidency of Madras, made by Professor Mayer, of the University of
Madras, clearly prove that the food of the inhabitants of that part of
India is of a far more highly nitrogenous character than is generally
supposed. That the Hindu, who subsists exclusively on rice, exhibits
all the symptoms of deficient nutrition, is a fact to which numerous
competent observers have testified.

A slight consideration of the facts which I have mentioned leads to the
conclusion that the food of the inhabitants of very cold regions is
required to produce a large amount of heat. Melons, rice, and other
watery vegetable productions, however delicious to the palate of the
Hindu, would be rejected with disgust by the Esquimaux, whilst the train
oil, blubber, and putrid seal's flesh which the children of the icy
North consider highly palatable, would excite the loathing of the East
Indian. On this subject I may appositely quote the following remarks by
Dr. Kane, the Arctic explorer:--"Our journeys have taught us the wisdom
of the Esquimaux appetite, and there are few among us who do not relish
a slice of raw blubber, or a chunk of frozen walrus beef. The liver of
a walrus (awuktanuk), eaten with little slices of his fat--of a verity
it is a delicious morsel. Fire would seem to spoil the curt, pithy
expression of vitality which belongs to its uncooked juices. Charles
Lamb's roast pig was nothing to awuktanuk. I wonder that raw beef is not
eaten at home. Deprived of extraneous fibre, it is neither indigestible
nor difficult to masticate. With acids and condiments, it makes a salad
which an educated palate cannot help relishing; and as a powerful and
condensed heat-making and anti-scorbutic food, it has no rival. I make
this last broad assertion after carefully considering its truth. The
natives of South Greenland prepare themselves for a long journey, by a
course of frozen seal. At Upper Navik they do the same with the narwhal,
which is thought more heat-making than the seal; while the bear, to use
their own expression, is 'stronger travel than all.' In Smith's Sound,
where the use of raw meat seems almost inevitable from the modes of
living of the people, walrus holds the first rank. Certainly this
pachyderm (Cetacean?) whose finely condensed tissue and delicately
permeating fat (oh! call it not blubber) assimilate it to the ox, is
beyond all others, and is the best _fuel_ a man can swallow." The
gastronomic capabilities of the Esquimaux and of other northern races,
and their fondness for fatty food, are exhibited in a sufficiently
strong light in the following statements:--

Captain Parry weighed and presented to an Esquimaux lad the following
articles:--

                                                         lb.  oz.

  Frozen seahorse flesh                                   4    4
  Wild seahorse flesh                                     4    4
  Bread and bread dust                                    1   12
  Rich gravy soup                                         1    4
  Water                                                  10    0
  Strong grog                                         1 tumbler.
  Raw spirits                                    3 wine glasses.

This large quantity of food, which the lad did not consider excessive,
was consumed by him within twenty-four hours. According to Captain
Cochrane a reindeer suffices but for one repast for three Yakutis, and
five of them will devour at a sitting a calf weighing 200 lbs. Mr.
Hooper, one of the officers of the _Plover_, in his narrative of their
residence on the shores of Arctic America, states that "one of the
ladies who visited them was presented, as a jest, with a small tallow
candle, called a purser's dip. It was, notwithstanding, a very pleasant
joke to the damsel, who deliberately munched it up with evident relish,
and finally drew the wick between her set teeth to clean off any
remaining morsels of fat."

The partiality for certain kinds of food, and disgust at other
varieties, which particular races of men exhibit, is an instinct which
they cannot avoid obeying. Instead of exciting our disgust, as it too
frequently does, it should exalt our admiration of the infinite wisdom
of the Creator, who by simply adapting man's desire for particular kinds
of food to the external conditions under which he is placed, enables him
to occupy and "subdue the earth" from the Equator to the Poles.

The food of human beings and of the lower animals who inhabit cold
countries is nearly exclusively composed of animal substances.
The flesh, fat, and oil of animals occupy less space than do the
corresponding elements of vegetables; consequently the nutriment they
afford is more concentrated, and a larger quantity can be stowed away
without inconvenience in the stomach. The heat-forming constituents of
these substances constitute not only the chief part of their bulk, but
they are also capable of evolving a greater amount of heat than any
other of the respiratory elements. One pound of dry fat will develop as
much heat as two and a half pounds of dry starch, and the fattest flesh
includes four times as much plastic materials as rice. The diet of
people all over the world, unless under circumstances which prevent the
gratification of the natural appetite, establishes the intimate relation
which subsists between cold and food. The appetite of man is at a
minimum at the Equator, and at a maximum within the Arctic circle. The
statements as to the voracity of Hottentots and Bosjesmans, recorded in
the narratives of travellers, do not in the slightest degree affect the
general rule that more is eaten in cold climates than in hot regions.
These are mere records of gluttony, and it would not be difficult to
find parallel cases in our own country. Gluttony is an abnormal
appetite, and the greater part of the food devoured under its unnatural,
and generally unhealthy stimulus is not applied to the wants of the body.

The bodies of animals are heated masses of matter, and are subject to
the ordinary laws of _radiation_. Every substance radiates its heat, and
receives in return a portion of that emitted from surrounding bodies. If
two bodies of unequal temperature be placed near each other, the warmer
of the two will radiate a portion of its heat to the colder, and will
receive some of the heat of the latter in return; but as the warmer body
will emit more heat than it will receive, the result will be, that after
a time, the length of which will depend on the nature of the bodies,
both will acquire the same temperature. In very warm climates the bodies
of animals derive from the sun, and from the heated bodies surrounding
them, more heat than they give in return; and were it not for their
internal cooling apparatus, which I have described, the heat so absorbed
would prove fatal. In every climate, on the contrary, where the
temperature is lower than 98 deg., or "blood heat," the bodies of animals
lose more heat by radiation than they receive by the same means. The
philosophy of the _clothing_ of men and the _sheltering_ of the lower
animals is now evident. It is not only necessary that heat should be
developed within the body, but also that its wasteful expenditure should
be prevented. The latter is effected by interposing between the warm
body and the cold air some substances (such as fur or wool) which do not
readily permit the transmission of heat--_non-conductors_ as they are
termed. The close down of the eider duck is destined to protect its
bosom from the chilling influence of the icy waters of the North Polar
Sea, and the quadrupeds of the dreary Arctic Circle are sheltered by
thick fur coverings from the piercing blasts of its long winter.

_Fat Equivalents._--Whilst it is quite certain that neither nerves nor
muscles can be elaborated exclusively out of fat, starch, sugar, or any
other non-nitrogenous substance, it is almost equally clear that fat may
be formed out of nitrogenous tissue. The quantity of fat, however, which
is produced in the animal mechanism, from purely nitrogenous food
appears to be relatively very small. No animal is capable of subsisting
solely on muscle-forming materials, no matter how abundantly supplied.
The food of the Carnivora contains a large proportion of fat, and the
nutriment of the Herbivora is largely made up of starch and other
fat-formers. Dogs, geese, and other animals fed exclusively upon albumen
or white of egg rapidly decreased in weight, and after presenting all
the symptoms of starvation, died in three or four weeks.[8] The fat of
the bodies of the Carnivora is almost entirely formed--and probably with
little if any alteration--from the fatty constituents of their food.
Herbivorous animals, on the contrary, derive nearly all their fat from
starch, sugar, gum, cellulose, and other non-nitrogenous, but not fatty,
materials.

Although starch is convertible into fat, it is not to be understood that
a pound weight of one of these bodies is equivalent to an equal quantity
of the other. During the conversion of starch into fat, the greater
number of its constituent atoms is converted into water and carbonic
acid gas. The greater number of the more important metamorphoses of
organised matter, which take place in the animal organum, is the result
of either oxidation or fermentation: in the conversion of starch or
sugar into fat or oil, both of these processes, it is stated, take
place; a portion of the hydrogen is converted by oxidation into water,
and by fermentation carbonic acid gas is formed, which removes both
oxygen and carbon. Perhaps in the formation of fat fermentation is alone
employed--a portion of the oxygen being removed as water, and another
portion as carbonic acid. The chief difference between the ultimate
composition of starch and fat is, that the latter contains a much larger
proportion of hydrogen and carbon. The knowledge of the exact quantity
of starch required for the formation of a given amount of fat is of
importance in enabling us to estimate the relative feeding value of both
substances. Certain difficulties stand in the way of our acquiring an
accurate knowledge on this point. Not only are there several distinct
kinds of fat, but the precise formula, or atomic constitution of each,
is as yet veiled in doubt. There are three fats which occur in man
and the domesticated animals, and in vegetables. These are stearine,
margarine, and oleine. The relative proportions of these vary in each
animal: thus, in man and in the goose margarine is the most abundant
fat, whilst oleine[9] exists in the pig in a greater proportion than in
man, the sheep, or the ox. The composition of the animal fats does not,
however, vary much; and this fact, together with other considerations,
have led chemists to assume that two-and-a-half parts of starch are
required for the production of one part of the mixed fats of the
different animals. Grape sugar and the pectine bodies--substances which
form a large proportion of the food of the Herbivora--contain more
oxygen and hydrogen than exist in starch, and, consequently, are not
capable of forming so large an amount of fat as an equal weight of
starch. We may assume, then, that 2.50 parts of starch, 2.75 parts of
sugar, or 3 parts of the pectine bodies, are equivalent to 1 part of
fat.


SECTION IV.

RELATION BETWEEN THE COMPOSITION OF AN ANIMAL AND THAT OF ITS FOOD.

I have already stated that the results of the admirable investigations
of Lawes and Gilbert prove that the non-nitrogenous constituents of the
carcasses of oxen, sheep, and pigs exceed in weight their nitrogenous
elements. This fact is suggestive of many important questions. What
relation is there between the composition of an animal and that of
its food? Should an animal whose body contains three times as much
fat as lean flesh, be supplied with food containing three times
as much fat-formers as flesh-formers? To these questions there is
some difficulty in replying. There _is_ a relationship between the
composition of the body of an animal and that of its food; but the
relationship varies so greatly that it is impossible to determine with
any degree of accuracy the quantity of fat-formers which is required to
produce a given weight of fat in animals, taken _in globo_. If, however,
we deal with a particular animal placed under certain conditions, it is
then possible to ascertain the amount of fat which a given weight of
non-plastic food will produce. For the greater part of our knowledge
on this point, as on so many others, in the feeding of stock, we are
indebted to Lawes and Gilbert. In the case of sheep fed upon fattening
food these inquirers found that every 100 lbs. of dry[10] non-nitrogenous
substances consumed by them produced, on an average, an increase of 10
lbs. in the weight of their fat. In the case of pigs, also, supplied
with food, the proportion of non-nitrogenous matters appropriated to
the animal's increase was double that so applied in the bodies of the
sheep. As the food supplied to these animals contained but a very small
proportion of ready-formed fat, it was inferred that four-fifths of the
fat of the increase was derived from the sugar, starch, cellulose, and
pectine bodies.

These tables exhibit in a condensed form the results of one of the
elaborate series of experiments in relation to this point carried out
by Lawes and Gilbert:--

  ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF CERTAIN CONSTITUENTS STORED UP IN _INCREASE_,
  FOR 100 PARTS OF EACH CONSUMED IN FOOD BY FATTENING SHEEP.

                      +--------------------------------------------------------
                      | KEY:
                      | A.--No. of Animals.
                      | B.--Mineral matter (ash).[11]
                      | C.--Nitrogenous compounds (dry).
                      | D.--Non-nitrogenous substance.
                      | E.--Total dry substance.
                      |
  --------------------+------------------------------------+-------------------
                                                           |  Amount of each
                                                           | Class in Increase
                                                           |for 100 of the same
           GENERAL PARTICULARS OF THE EXPERIMENTS.         | consumed in Food.
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                      |   |         |   Description of     |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |   Fattening Food.    |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |-------------+--------|    |    |    |
                      |   |         |   Given     | Given  |    |    |    |
                      |   |         | in limited  |  ad    |    |    |    |
         BREED.       | A.|Duration.|  quantity.  |libitum.| B. | C. | D. | E.
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                                        Class I.
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                      |   |wks. dys.|Oilcake and  |Swedish |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |clover chaff.|turnips.|    |    |    |
  Cotswolds           | 46| 19    5 |      "      |   "    |3.98|4.43|11.6|9.60
  Leicesters          | 40| 20    0 |      "      |   "    |3.15|3.39|12.0|9.48
  Cross-bred wethers  | 40| 20    0 |      "      |   "    |3.24|3.60|11.6|9.31
  Cross-bred ewes     | 40| 20    0 |      "      |   "    |3.25|3.60|11.8|9.40
  Hants Downs         | 40| 26    0 |      "      |   "    |3.40|4.28|10.3|8.49
  Sussex Downs        | 40| 26    0 |      "      |   "    |3.30|4.16|10.3|8.44
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                                             Means         |3.39|3.91|11.3|9.12
  =========================================================+====+====+====+====
                               Class III.--(Series 1.)
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                      |   |         |             |Swedish |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |             |turnips.|    |    |    |
  Hants Downs         | 5 | 13    6 |Oilcake.     |   "    |4.16|4.01|11.1|9.33
                      | 5 | 13    6 |Oats.        |   "    |5.73|7.07|10.0|9.45
                      | 5 | 13    6 |Clover chaff.|   "    |3.98|7.44| 9.0|8.49
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+---------+----+----
                                             Means         |4.62|6.17|10.0|9.09
  =========================================================+====+====+====+====
                               Class IV.--(Series 2.)
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                      |   |         |             | Clover |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |             | chaff. |    |    |    |
  Hants Downs         | 5 | 19    1 |Oilcake.     |   "    |1.69|2.20| 6.3|5.07
                      | 5 | 19    1 |Linseed.     |   "    |1.81|2.32| 6.2|5.19
                      | 5 | 19    1 |Barley.      |   "    |1.75|2.82| 5.7|5.00
                      | 5 | 19    1 |Malt.        |   "    |1.46|2.17| 5.3|4.61
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                                             Means         |1.68|2.38| 5.9|4.97
  =========================================================+====+====+====+====
                               Class V.--(Series 4.)
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                      |   |         |             |Mangolds|    |    |    |
  Hants Downs         | 4 | 10    0 |Barley ground|   "    |3.80|5.65| 9.8|8.91
                      | 5 | 10    0 |Malt, ground,|   "    |4.04|6.18|10.4|9.49
                      |   |         |& malt dust. |        |    |    |    |
                      | 4 | 10    0 |Barley ground|   "    |3.72|6.35| 8.9|8.28
                      |   |         | and steeped.|        |    |    |    |
                      | 4 | 10    0 |Malt, ground |   "    |2.95|4.34| 9.3|8.23
                      |   |         |and steeped, |        |    |    |    |
                      |   |         |& malt dust. |        |    |    |    |
                      | 5 | 10    0 |Malt, ground,|   "    |3.46|5.46| 9.1|8.25
                      |   |         |& malt dust. |        |    |    |    |
  --------------------+---+---------+-------------+--------+----+----+----+----
                                             Means         |3.59|5.60| 9.5|8.63
  ---------------------------------------------------------+----+----+----+----
                                             Means of all  |3.27|4.41| 9.4|8.06
  =========================================================+====+====+====+====


  ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF CERTAIN CONSTITUENTS STORED UP IN _INCREASE_,
  FOR 100 OF EACH CONSUMED IN FOOD, BY FATTENING PIGS.

             +-----------------------------------------------------------------
             | KEY:
             | A.--No. of Animals.
             | B.--Mineral matter (ash).
             | C.--Nitrogenous compounds (dry).
             | D.--Non-nitrogenous substance.
             | E.--Total dry substance.
             | F.--Fat.
             |
  -----------+----------------------------------------+------------------------
                                                      |  Amount of each Class
                                                      |    in Increase for
        GENERAL PARTICULARS OF THE EXPERIMENTS.       |    100 of the same
                                                      |   consumed in Food.
  --+--------+----------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
    |        |     Description of Fattening Food.     |    |     |    |    |
    |        |--------------------+-------------------|    |     |    |    |
    |        |      Given in      |      Given        |    |     |    |    |
  A.|Duration|limited quantities. |   ad libitum.     | B. |  C. | D. | E. | F.
  ==+========+====================+===================+====+=====+====+====+===
                           The Analysed "Fat Pig."[12]
  --+--------+----------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
    | weeks  |                                        |    |     |    |    |
  1 |  10    |Mixture of bran 1, bean and lentil-meal |2.66| 7.76|17.6|14.9|405
    |        |  2, and barley-meal 3 parts, ad libitum|    |     |    |    |
  ==+========+========================================+====+=====+====+====+===
                              Series I.
  --+--------+--------------------+-------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
  3 |   8    |None.               |Bean & lentil-meal.|0.68| 4.88|25.3|17.5|621
  3 |   "    |Indian-meal.        |  "                |1.86| 6.39|23.7|17.9|477
  3 |   "    |Indian-meal and bran|  "                |0.33| 5.02|21.1|16.1|362
  3 |   "    |None.               |Indian meal.       |2.09| 9.28|20.9|18.6|300
  3 |   "    |Bean and lentil-meal|  "                |0.99| 9.18|20.9|18.4|324
  3 |   "    |Bran.               |  "                |2.35|12.10|20.3|18.7|300
  3 |   "    |Bean, lentil-meal,  |  "                |2.71|10.03|21.3|18.5|307
    |        |  and bran.         |  "                |    |     |    |    |
    |        |                    +-------------------|    |     |    |    |
  3 |   "    |Bean, lentil-meal, Indian-meal, bran,   |0.22| 5.65|21.1|16.8|362
    |        |  ad libitum.                           |    |     |    |    |
  --+--------+----------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
                                      Means           |0.74| 7.82|21.8|17.8|382
  ====================================================+====+=====+====+====+===
                              Series II.
  --+--------+--------------------+-------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
  3 |   8    |None.               |Bean & lentil-meal.|3.20| 3.12|26.5|18.2|801
  3 |   "    |Barley-meal.        |  "                |0.16| 4.65|19.2|14.7|575
  3 |   "    |Bran.               |  "                |0.16| 3.99|21.2|15.2|547
  3 |   "    |Barley-meal and bran|  "                |0.75| 4.57|20.1|15.6|514
  3 |   "    |None.               |Barley-meal.       |0.56|10.09|18.5|16.9|574
  3 |   "    |Bean and lentil-meal|  "                |0.53| 6.57|21.1|17.5|620
  3 |   "    |Bran.               |  "                |0.49| 9.79|18.9|16.9|506
  3 |   "    |Bean, lentil-meal,  |  "                |4.33| 4.49|22.7|18.0|578
    |        |  and bran.         |                   |    |     |    |    |
    |        |                    +-------------------|    |     |    |    |
  6 |   "    |Mixture of bran 1, barley-meal 2, and   |0.27| 5.65|20.4|16.1|495
    |        |  bean lentil-meal 3 parts, ad libitum. |    |     |    |    |
  6 |   "    |Mixture of bran 1, bean lentil-meal 2,  |1.58| 8.10|21.1|17.6|515
    |        |  barley-meal 3 parts, ad libitum.      |    |     |    |    |
  --+--------+----------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
                                      Means           |0.59| 6.10|21.0|16.7|572
  ====================================================+====+=====+====+====+===
                              Series III.
  --+--------+--------------------+-------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
  4 |   8    |Dried Cod Fish.     |Bran & Indian-meal |1.06| 5.06|24.3|18.1|315
    |        |                    | (equal parts).    |    |     |    |    |
  4 |   "    |  "                 |Indian-meal.       |0.26| 8.16|25.6|20.9|352
  --+--------+--------------------+-------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
                                      Means           |0.66| 6.61|24.9|19.5|333
  ====================================================+====+=====+====+====+===
                              Series IV.
  --+--------+--------------------+-------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
  3 |   10   |Lentil-meal & bran. |Sugar.             |3.07| 9.30|19.4|16.9|
  3 |    "   |  "                 |Starch.            |3.18| 9.36|19.4|16.9|
  3 |    "   |  "                 |Sugar & starch.    |4.06|10.78|17.7|16.1|
    |        |                    +-------------------|    |     |    |    |
  3 |    "   |Lentils, bran, sugar, starch, ad libitum|4.80| 9.96|18.7|16.5|
  --+--------+----------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----|---
                                      Means           |3.78| 9.85|18.8|16.6|
  ----------------------------------------------------+----+-----+----+----+---
                                      Means of all    |0.58| 7.34|21.2|17.3|472
  ====================================================+====+=====+====+====+===

The larger appropriation of the non-nitrogenous constituents of its food
by the pig, as compared with the sheep, must not be attributed solely to
its greater tendency to fatten, but partly to the far more digestible
nature of the food supplied to it.


SECTION V.

RELATION BETWEEN THE QUANTITY OF FOOD CONSUMED BY AN ANIMAL, AND THE
INCREASE IN ITS WEIGHT, OR OF THE AMOUNT OF ITS WORK.

The manifestations of that wondrous and mysterious principle, _life_,
are completely dependent upon the decomposition of organised matter. Not
an effort of the mind, not a motion of the body, can be accomplished
without involving the destruction of a portion of the tissues. In a
general sense we may regard the fat of the animal to be its store of
fuel, and its lean flesh to be the source of its motive power. As the
evolution of heat within the body is proportionate to the quantity of
fat consumed, so also is the amount of force developed in the animal
mechanism in a direct ratio to the proportion of flesh decomposed.
The quantity of fat burned in the body is estimated by the amount of
carbonic acid gas expired from the lungs and perspired through the skin;
the proportion of flesh disorganised is ascertained by the quantity of
urea eliminated in the liquid egesta. The amount of urea excreted daily
by a man is influenced by the activity of his mind, as well as by that
of his body. A man engaged in physical labor wears out more of his body
than one who does no work; and a man occupied in a pursuit involving
intense mental application, consumes a greater proportion of his tissue
than the man who works only with his body.[13] In each of these cases,
there is a different amount of tissue disorganised, and consequently a
demand for different amounts of food, with which to repair the waste.
But all the food consumed by a man is not devoted to the reparation of
the tissue worn out in the operations of thinking and working. A human
being whose mind is a perfect blank, and who performs no bodily work,
excretes a large quantity of urea, the representative of an equivalent
amount of worn-out flesh. In fact the greater part of the food consumed
by a man serves merely to sustain the functions of the body--the
circulation of the blood--the action of the heart--the movements of the
muscles concerned in respiration--in a word, the various motions of the
body which are independent of the will. According to Professor Haughton,
about three-fourths of the food of a working man of 150 lbs. weight, are
used in merely keeping him _alive_, the remaining fourth is expended in
the production of mechanical force, constituting his daily toil.

In the nutrition of the lower animals, as in that of man, the amount of
food made use of by a particular individual depends upon its age, its
weight, the amount of work it performs, and probably its temper. As
three-fourths of the weight of the food of a laboring man are expended
in merely keeping him alive, it is obvious that the withholding of the
remaining fourth would render him incapable of working. An amount of
food which adequately maintains the vital and mechanical powers of three
men, serves merely to keep four alive. It is the same with the horse,
the ox, and every other animal useful to man: each makes use of a
certain amount of food, _for its own purposes_; all that is consumed
beyond that is applied for the benefit of its owner. Let us take the
case of two of our most useful quadrupeds--the horse and the ox. The
horse is used as an immediate source of motive power. For this purpose
food is supplied to it, the greater portion of which is consumed in
keeping the animal alive, and the rest for the development of its motive
power. Abundance of food is as necessary to the natural mechanism,
the horse, as fuel is to the artificial mechanism, the steam-engine.
In each case the amount of force developed is, within certain limits,
proportionate to the quantity of vegetable or altered vegetable matter
consumed. The greater portion of the ox's food is also consumed in
keeping its body alive, and the rest, instead of being expended in the
development of motive power, accumulates as surplus stores of flesh,
which in due time are applied to the purpose of repairing the organisms
of men. It is evident then, that the greater sufferer from the deficient
supply of food to animals is their owner. That they cannot be _taught_
to _fast_ is a fact which does not appear very patent to some minds.
The man who sought by gradually reducing the daily quantum of his
horse's provender to accustom it to work without eating, was justly
punished for his ignorant cruelty. The day before the horse's allowance
was to be reduced to pure water, and when its owner's hope appeared
certain of speedy realisation, the animal died. There are men who act
almost as foolishly as the parsimonious horse owner in this fable did;
and who are as properly punished as he was. Such men are to be found in
the farmers who overstock their sheep pastures, and whose "lean kine"
are the _laughing stock_ of their more intelligent neighbours.

The weight of a working full-grown horse does not vary from day
to day, as the weight of its egesta is equal to that of its food.
The desideratum in the case of the working animal is that its food
should be as thoroughly decomposed as possible, and the force pent
up in it liberated within the animal's body: as an ox, on the contrary,
increases in weight from day to day, it is desirable that as little as
possible of its food should be disorganised. The wasteful expenditure
of the animal's fat may be obviated by shelter, and the application of
artificial heat: the retardation of the destruction of its flesh is even
more under our control; for, as active muscular exertion involves the
decomposition of tissue, we have merely to diminish the activity of
the motions which cause this waste. This, in practice, is effected by
stall-feeding. Confined within the narrow boundaries of the stall, the
muscular action of the animal is reduced to a minimum, or limited to
those uncontrollable actions which are conditions in the maintenance
of animal life.

The proportion of the food of oxen, sheep, and pigs, which is
consumed in maintaining their vital functions, has not been accurately
ascertained; probably, as in the case of man, it is strictly
proportionate to the animal's weight. We can determine the amount
of plastic food consumed by an animal during a given period: we can
ascertain the increase (if any) in the weight of its body; and finally,
we can weigh and analyse its egesta. With these data it is comparatively
easy to ascertain the quantity of food which produced the increase in
the animal's weight; but they do not enable us to determine the amount
expended in keeping it alive, because the egesta might be largely made
up of unappropriated food--organised matter which had done no work in
the animal body. When we come to know the precise quantity of nitrogen,
in a purely, or nearly pure, mineral form[14] excreted by an animal,
then we shall be in a position to estimate the proportion of its food
expended in sustaining the essential vital processes which continuously
go on in its body. But although we are in ignorance as to the precise
quantity of flesh-formers expended in keeping the animal alive, we know
pretty accurately the amount which is consumed in producing a given
weight of its flesh, or rather in causing a certain increase in its
weight. This knowledge is the result of numerous investigations, of
which by far the most valuable are those of Lawes and Gilbert. These
experimenters found that fattening pigs stored up about 7-1/2 per
cent. of the plastic materials of their food, whilst sheep accumulated
somewhat less than 5 per cent. That is, 92-1/2 out of every 100 lbs.
weight of the nitrogenous food of the pig, and 95 out of every 100 lbs.
of that of the sheep, are eliminated in the excretions of those animals.

It appears from the results of Lawes and Gilbert's experiments, that
pigs store up in their _increase_ about 20 per cent., sheep 12 per
cent., and oxen 8 per cent. of their (dry) food. The relative increase
of the fatty, nitrogenous, and mineral constituents whilst fattening,
are shown in this table.

  ---------------------+-------------------------------------------------
                       |Estimated per cent. in Increase whilst Fattening.
  CASES.               +--------+-----------+-----------+----------------
                       |Mineral |Nitrogenous|           |
                       | matter |matter     | Fat (dry).| Total dry
                       |(ash).  |(dry).     |           | substance.
  ---------------------+--------+-----------+-----------+----------------
  Average of  98 oxen  | 1.47   |  7.69     |  66.2     |  75.4
  Average of 348 sheep | 1.80   |  7.13     |  70.4     |  79.53
  Average of  80 pigs  | 0.44   |  6.44     |  71.5     |  78.40
  ---------------------+--------+-----------+-----------+----------------

The quantity of food consumed daily by an animal is, as might be expected,
proportionate to the weight of its body. The pig consumes, for every 100
lbs. of its weight, from 26 to 30 lbs. of food, the sheep 15 lbs., and
the ox 12 to 13 lbs. These figures and the statements which I have made
relative to the proportions of fat and plastic elements in the animals'
bodies, apply to them in their fattening state, and when the food is
of a highly nutritious character. The calf and the young pig will
make use--to cause their increase--of a larger portion of nitrogenous
matters. The sheep, however, being early brought to maturity, will, even
when very young, store up the plastic and non-plastic constituents of
its food, in nearly the same relative proportions that I have mentioned.

As it is the food taken into the body that produces heat and motion, it
might at first sight appear an easy matter to determine the amount of
heat or of motion which a given weight of a particular kind of food is
capable of producing within the animal mechanism. But this performance
is not so easy a task as it appears to be. In the first place, all of
the food may not be perfectly oxidised, though thoroughly disorganised
within the body; secondly, as animals rarely subsist on one kind of
food, it is difficult, when they are supplied with mixed aliments, to
determine which of them is the most perfectly decomposed. But though the
difficulties which I have mentioned, and many others, render the task
of determining the nutritive values of food substances difficult, the
problem is by no means insoluble, and, in fact, is in a fair way of
being solved. Professor Frankland, in a paper published in the number
of the _Philosophical Magazine_ for September, 1866, determines the
relative alimental value of foods by ascertaining the quantity of heat
evolved by each when burned in oxygen gas. From the results of these
researches he has constructed a table, showing the amount of food
necessary to keep a man alive for twenty-four hours. The following
figures, which I select from this table, are of interest to the
stock-feeder:--


                      Weight necessary to sustain a
                      man's life for twenty-four hours.

  Kinds of Food.                 Ounces.

  Potatoes                       13.4
  Apples                         20.7
  Oatmeal                         3.4
  Flour                           3.5
  Pea Meal                        3.5
  Bread                           6.4
  Milk                           21.2
  Carrots                        25.6
  Cabbage                        31.8
  Butter                          1.8
  Lump Sugar                      3.9

These figures show the relative calefacient, or heat-producing powers of
the different foods named _outside_ the body; but there is some doubt as
to their having the same relative values when burned _within_ the body.
The woody fibre of the carrots and cabbages is very combustible in the
coal furnace, but it is very doubtful if more than 20 or 30 per cent. of
this substance is ever burned in the _animal furnace_. However, such
inquiries as those carried out by Frankland possess great value; and
tables constructed upon their results cannot fail to be useful in the
drawing up of dietary scales, whether for man or for the inferior
animals.

I may here remark, that in my opinion the nutritive value of food admits
of being very accurately determined by the adoption of the following
method:--

1. The animal experimented upon to be supplied daily with a weighed
quantity of food, the composition and calefacient value of which had
been accurately determined. 2. The gases, vapors, and liquid and solid
egesta thrown off from its body to be collected, analysed, and the
calefacient[15] value of the combustible portion of them to be determined.
3. The increase (if any) of the weight of the animal to be ascertained.
4. The difference between the amount of heat evolvable by the foods
before being consumed, and that actually obtained by the combustion
of the egesta into which they were ultimately converted, would be the
amount actually set free and rendered available within the body. The
calculations would be somewhat affected by an increase in the weight
of the animal's body; but it would not be difficult to keep the weight
stationary, or nearly so, and there are other ways of getting over
such a difficulty. An experiment such as this would be a costly one,
and could not be properly conducted unless by the aid of an apparatus
similar to that employed by Pettenkofer in his experiments on
respiration. This apparatus, which was made at the expense of the King
of Bavaria, cost nearly L600.

_Value of Manure._--It is a complication in the question of the
economic feeding of the farm animals that the value of their manure
must be taken into account. Of the three classes of food constituents,
two--the mineral and nitrogenous--are recoverable in the animal's body
and manure; the non-nitrogenous is partly recoverable in the fat.
I shall take the case of a sheep, which will consume weekly per 100
lbs. of its weight, 12 lbs. of fat-formers, and 3 lbs. of flesh-formers.
Twelve per cent. of the fat-formers will be retained in the _increase_,
but the rest will be expended in keeping the animal warm, and the
products of its combustion--carbonic acid and water--will be useless to
the farmer. It is, therefore, desirable to diminish as much as possible
the combustion of fatty matter in the animal's body; and this is
effected, as I have already explained, by keeping it in a warm place.
Of the flesh-forming substance only five per cent. is retained in the
increase, the rest is partly consumed in carrying on the movements of
the animal--partly expelled from its body unaltered, or but slightly
altered, in composition. The solid excrement of the animal contains
all the undigested food; but of this only the mineral and nitrogenous
constituents are valuable as manure. The nitrogen of the plastic
materials which are expended in maintaining the functions of the body is
eliminated from the lungs, through the skin, and by the kidneys--perhaps
also, but certainly only to a small extent, by the rectum.

The food consumed by an animal is disposed of in the following way:--A
portion passes unchanged, or but slightly altered, through the body;
another part is assimilated and subsequently disorganised and ejected;
the rest is converted into the carcass of the animal at the time of its
death. The undigested food and aliment which had undergone conversion
into flesh and other tissues, and subsequent disorganisation, constitute
the excrements, or manure, of the animal. The richer in nitrogen and
phosphoric acid the food is, the more valuable will be the manure; so
that the money value of a feeding stuff is not determinable merely by
the amount of flesh which it makes, but also, and to a great extent,
by the value of the manure into which it is ultimately converted.

Corn and oil-cakes are powerful fertilisers of the soil; but the three
principles which constitute their manurial value--namely, nitrogen
(ammonia), phosphoric acid, and potash--are purchasable at far lower
prices in guano and other manures. Nevertheless, many farmers believe
that the most economical way to produce good manure is to feed their
stock with concentrated aliment, in order to greatly increase the value
of their excreta. They consider that a pound's worth of oil-cake, or of
corn, will produce at least a pound's worth of meat, and that the manure
will be had for nothing, or, rather, will be the profit of the business.
The richer food is in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, the more valuable
will be the manure it yields. It follows, therefore, that if two kinds
of feeding stuff produce equal amounts of meat, that the preference
should be given to that which contains the more nitrogen and phosphoric
acid. Mr. Lawes, who has thrown light upon this point, as well as upon
so many others, has made careful estimates of the value of the manure
produced from different foods.  They are given in the following table:--

  TABLE

  Showing the estimated value of the manure obtained on the
  consumption of one ton of different articles of food; each
  supposed to be of good quality of its kind.

                                               Estimated Money Value
      Description of Food.                     of the Manure from
                                               One Ton of each Food.

   1. Decorticated cotton-seed cake               L6   10   0
   2. Rape-cake                                    4   18   0
   3. Linseed-cake                                 4   12   0
   4. Malt-dust                                    4    5   0
   5. Lentils                                      3   17   0
   6. Linseed                                      3   13   0
   7. Tares                                        3   13   6
   8. Beans                                        3   13   6
   9. Peas                                         3    2   6
  10. Locust beans                                 1    2   6(?)
  11. Oats                                         1   14   6
  12. Wheat                                        1   13   0
  13. Indian corn                                  1   11   6
  14. Malt                                         1   11   6
  15. Barley                                       1    9   6
  16. Clover-hay                                   2    5   0
  17. Meadow-hay                                   1   10   0
  18. Oat-straw                                    0   13   6
  19. Wheat-straw                                  0   12   6
  20. Barley-straw                                 0   10   6
  21. Potatoes                                     0    7   0
  22. Mangolds                                     0    5   0
  23. Swedish turnips                              0    4   3
  24. Common turnips                               0    4   0
  25. Carrots                                      0    4   0

All the saline matter contained in the food is either converted into
flesh, or is recoverable in the form of manure, but a portion of its
nitrogen appears to be lost by respiration and perspiration. Reiset
states that 100 parts of the nitrogen of food given to sheep upon
which he experimented, were disposed of as follows:--


  Recovered in the excreta                                 58.3
  Recovered in the meat, tallow, and skin                  13.7
  Lost in respiration                                      28.0
                                                          ------
                                                          100.00

Haughton's experiments, performed upon men, gave results which proved
that no portion of the nitrogen of their food was lost by perspiration
or by respiration. Barral, on the contrary, asserts that nitrogen
is given off from the bodies of both man and the inferior animals.
Boussingault states that horses, sheep, and pigs exhale nitrogen.
A cow, giving milk, on which he had experimented, lost 15 per cent.
of the nitrogen of its food by perspiration. The amount of nitrogen
which Reiset states that sheep exhale is exceedingly great, and it
is difficult to reconcile his results with those obtained by Voit,
Bischoff, Regnault, Pettenkofer, and Haughton. Of course, men and sheep
are widely different animals; but still it is unlikely that all the
nitrogen of the food of man should be recoverable in his egesta, whilst
nearly a third of the nitrogen of the food of the sheep should be
dissipated as gas. I think further experiments are necessary before this
point can be regarded as settled; and it is probable that it will yet be
found that all, or nearly all, of the nitrogen of the food of animals is
recoverable in their egesta.

Regarding, then, an animal as a mechanism by which meat is to be
"manufactured," five economic points in relation to it demand the
feeder's attention: these are--the first cost of the mechanism, the
expense of maintaining the mechanism in working order, the price of
the raw materials intended for conversion into meat, the value of the
meat, and the value of the manure. In proportion to the attention given
to these points, will be the feeder's profits; but they are, to some
extent, affected by the climatic, geographic, and other conditions under
which the farm is placed.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Footnote 1: If the elements were only capable of combining with each
other in simple ratios, the number of their combinations would be as
limited as that of the letters of the alphabet; but as one, two, or
more atoms of oxygen can combine with one, two, or more atoms of
other elements, we can assign no limits to the number of _possible_
combinations. There are hundreds of distinct substances formed of but
two elements, namely, hydrogen and carbon.]

[Footnote 2: In a paper by Professor Sullivan, of Dublin, the conversion
of one of these substances into another _outside_ the animal mechanism,
is almost incontrovertibly proved.]

[Footnote 3: _Experimental Inquiry into the Composition of some of
the Animals Fed and Slaughtered as Human Food._ By John Bennet Lawes,
F.R.S., F.C.S., and Joseph Henry Gilbert, Ph.D., F.C.S. _Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society._ Part II., 1860.]

[Footnote 4: From the Greek _plasso_, "to form." Plastic materials are
sometimes termed _formative_ elements; both terms imply the belief that
they are capable of giving shape, or form, not only to themselves, but
also to other kinds of matter not possessed of formative power.]

[Footnote 5: The slow conversion of phosphorus into phosphoric acid
takes place in the animal organism; its gradual oxidation in the open
air gives rise only to an imperfectly oxidised body--_phosphorous acid_.
But the latter fact does not invalidate the general proposition, that
the heat emitted by a substance undergoing the process of oxidation is
proportionate to the amount of oxygen with which it combines, and is not
influenced by the length of time occupied by the process, further than
this, that if the oxidation be _very_ rapidly effected, a portion of the
heat will be converted into an _equivalent_ amount of light.]

[Footnote 6: This statement is not absolutely correct, but the range
of variation is confined within such narrow limits as to be quite
insignificant.]

[Footnote 7: Doubt has recently been thrown on the truth of this belief
by Frankland, Fick, and Wislicenus.]

[Footnote 8: The results of Savory's experiments on rats appear to prove
that animals can live on food destitute of fat, sugar, starch, or any
other fat-forming substance. I think, however, that animals could hardly
thrive on purely nitrogenous food. The conclusions which certain late
writers, who object to Liebig's theory of animal heat, have deduced from
Savory's investigations, appear to me to be quite unfounded.]

[Footnote 9: So termed because it is the basis of the common oils; the
fluid portion of fat is composed of oleine.]

[Footnote 10: The term _dry_ is applied to the _solid_ constituents of
the food. Thus, a pig fed with 100 lbs. of potatoes would be said to
have been supplied with 25 lbs. of dry potatoes, because water forms
75 per cent. of the weight of those tubers.]

[Footnote 11: The amounts of "mineral matter" are too high, owing to the
adventitious matters (dirt) retained by the wool.]

[Footnote 12: This pig was completely analysed by Lawes and Gilbert.]

[Footnote 13: The results of recent and accurately conducted
investigations prove that men engaged in occupations requiring the
highest exercise of the intellectual faculties, require more nutritious
food, and even a greater quantity of nutriment, than the hardest worked
laborers, such as paviours, and navvies. I have been assured by an
extensive manufacturer, that on promoting his workmen to situations of
_greater_ responsibility but _less_ physically laborious than those
previously filled by them, he found that they required more food and
that, too, of a better quality. This change in their appetite was
not the result of increased wages, which in most cases remained the
same--the decrease in the amount of labour exacted being considered in
most cases a sufficient equivalent for the increased responsibility
thrown upon them.]

[Footnote 14: As ammonia, urea, uric acid, or hippuric acid; all of which
are nearly or perfectly mineralised substances.]

[Footnote 15: The excrements of animals are capable of evolving, by
combustion, enormous amounts of heat.]




PART II.

ON THE BREEDING AND BREEDS OF STOCK.


SECTION I.

THE BREEDING OF STOCK.

_Cross Breeding._--For many years past feeders have zealously occupied
themselves in the improvement of their stock, and the result of their
labors is observable in the marked superiority of the breeds of the
present day over their ancestors in the last century. The improvement
of animals designed as food for man is effected by keeping them on a
liberal dietary, by selecting only the best individuals for sires and
dams, and by combining the excellencies of two or more varieties of a
species in one breed. A species consists of a number of animals which
exhibit so many points of resemblance, that they are regarded by the
great majority of naturalists to be the descendants of a single pair.
If we except the believers in the hypotheses relative to the origin
of existing varieties of animals and plants, propounded by Lamarck,
Darwin, and other naturalists of the "advanced school," there is a
general belief in the immutability of species. The individuals of an
existing species, say dogs, can never acquire the peculiar features
of another species; nor can their descendants, if we except hybrids,
ever become animals in which the characteristics of the dog tribe are
irrecognisable. By various influences, such as, for example, differences
in food and climate, and domestication, a species may be split into
_varieties_, or _breeds_, all of which, however, retain the more
important characteristics of the primordial type. There appears to be
no limit to the varieties of dogs, yet one can perceive by a glance that
there is no specific difference between the huge Mont St. Bernard dog
and the diminutive poodle, or between the sparse greyhound and the burly
mastiff. All the varieties of our domestic fowl have been traced to
a common origin--the wild Indian fowl (_Gallus bankiva_). Even Darwin
admits that all the existing kinds of horses are, in all probability,
the descendants of an original stock; and it is generally agreed that
the scores of varieties of pigeons own a common ancestor in the rock
pigeon (_Columba livia_).

As certain individuals are grouped by naturalists into species, so
particular species, which in habits and general appearance resemble each
other, are arranged under the head of genus. The horse, the ass, and the
zebra are formed on nearly the same anatomical plan; they are therefore
classed together, and designated the genus _Equus_, a term derived from
the Latin word _equus_, a horse--that animal being regarded as the type,
or perfect member of the group. Thus the horse, in the nomenclature of
the naturalist, is termed _Equus caballus_; the ass, _Equus asinus_; and
the zebra, _Equus zebra_. By a further extension of this principle of
classification, very closely allied genera are united under the term
of _family_.

The different varieties of the same species breed, as might be
anticipated, freely together; but it frequently happens that two
individuals of different species pair, and produce an animal which
inherits some of the properties of each of its progenitors. These
half-breeds are termed _hybrids_, or _mules_, and we have familiar
examples of them in the common mule and the jennet. As a general rule,
animals exhibit a disinclination to breed with other than members of
their own species; and although the interference of man may overcome
this natural repugnance, he can only effect the fruitful congress of
individuals belonging to closely allied species, being members of the
same genus. Hybrids in the genus _Equus_ are very common. A cross has
been produced between the he-goat and the ewe; the camel and the
dromedary have bred together; and Buffon succeeded in producing a hybrid
in which three animals were represented--namely, the bison, the zebu,
and the ox. On the other hand, attempts to effect a cross between
animals belonging to different families have generally failed; nor is
it at all probable that a cross will ever be produced between the pig
and the sheep, between the horse and the cow, or, most unlikely of all,
between the dog and the cat.

It is the general belief that hybrids are sterile, or, at least, that
they are incapable of propagation _inter se_. This may be true with
respect to the hybrids of species not very closely allied; but that
there are exceptions to the rule is quite clear from Roux's experiments
with hares and rabbits. This gentleman, who is, or was, the president
of a French agricultural society, but who makes no profession of
scientific knowledge, has succeeded, after several failures, in producing
a fruitful cross between the rabbit and the hare. This hybrid has
received the name of leporide (from the Latin _leporinus_, pertaining to
a hare), and it is different from former crosses, in being five parts
hare, and three parts rabbit. M. Roux has bred this hybrid during the
last eighteen years, and has not observed the slightest appearance
of decay of race manifest itself up to the present, so that, for all
practical purposes, the leporide may be regarded as an addition to the
distinct species of animals. The leporide fattens rapidly, and with but
little expenditure of food. Sold at the age of four months, it realises,
in France, a price four times greater than that commanded by a rabbit of
the same age; and at a year old it weighs on an average ten pounds, and
sometimes as much as sixteen pounds. It breeds at four months, continues
thirty days in gestation, and yearly produces five or six litters of
from five to eight young. To produce this hybrid is by no means
difficult. A leveret, just old enough to dispense with the maternal
nutriment, should be placed with a few doe rabbits of his own age,
apart from other animals. He will soon become familiar with the does,
and when they attain the age of puberty, all the rabbits save one or two
should be removed. Speedily those left with the hare will become with
young, upon which they should be removed, and replaced by others. After
this the hare should be kept in a hutch by himself, and a doe left with
him at night only. As the hare is naturally a very shy animal, it will
only breed when perfect quietness prevails. The half-bred produced in
the first instance should now be put to the hare, and a cross, three
parts hare, and one part rabbit, obtained. The permanent breed should
then be obtained by crossing the quadroon doe leporide, if I may use the
term, with the half-bred buck.

I have directed attention to the production of the leporide because
I believe that the problems in relation to it, which have been solved
by M. Roux, have an important bearing upon the breeding of animals
of greater importance than hares and rabbits. Here we find a race of
animals produced by the fusion of two species, which naturally exist in
a state of mutual enmity, and which differ in many important respects.
The hare and the rabbit are respectively of but little value as food, at
least they are of no importance to the feeder; yet a cross between them
turns out to be an excellent meat-producing animal, which may be reared
with considerable profit to the feeder. It is thus clearly shown that
two kinds of animals, neither of which is of great utility, may give
rise to an excellent cross, if their blood, so to speak, be blended in
proper proportions. A half-bred animal may be less valuable than its
parents, but a quadroon may greatly excel its progenitors. The goat
and sheep are so closely related that they are classed by naturalists
under one head--_Capridae_. Some kinds of sheep have hair like goats, and
certain varieties of goats have fleeces that closely resemble those on
the sheep. There are sheep with horns, and goats without those striking
appendages. The Cape of Good Hope goat might easily be mistaken for a
sheep. It would seem, judging by the results of Roux's experiments, that
there is no great difficulty in the way of obtaining a cross between the
sheep and the goat. I do not mean an ordinary half-breed, but a prolific
hybrid similar to the leporide. Of course, it is impossible, _a priori_,
to say whether or not such a hybrid race, supposing it produceable,
would be valuable; but as goats can find a subsistence on mountains
where sheep would starve, it is possible that an animal, essentially a
sheep, but with a streak of goat blood in it, could be profitably kept
on very poor uplands. Whether a race of what we might term _caprides_ be
formed or not we have derived most suggestive information from M. Roux's
experiments, which I hope may be turned to account in what is by far the
most important field of enquiry, the judicious crossing of varieties of
the same species.

It is a _quaestio vexata_ whether or not the parents generally exercise
different influences upon the shape and size of their offspring. Mr.
Spooner supports the supposition--a very popular one--that the sire
gives shape to the external organs, whilst the dam affects the internal
organisation. I have considerable doubt as to the probability of this
theory. The children who spring from the union of a white man with a
negress possess physical and intellectual qualities which are nearly if
not quite the _mean_ of their parents; but the offspring of parents,
both of the same race--be it Caucasian, Mongolian, or Indian--frequently
conform, intellectually and corporeally, to either of their progenitors.
Thus, of the children of a tall, thin, dark man, and a short, fat,
fair woman, some will be like their father, and the others will
resemble their mother, or, perhaps, all may "take after" either parent.
Sometimes a child appears to be in every respect unlike its parents,
and occasionally the likeness of an ancestor appears in a descendant, in
whom no resemblance to his immediate progenitors can be detected. It is
highly probable that both parents exercise, under most circumstances, a
joint influence upon the qualities of their offspring, but that one of
them may produce so much greater an effect that the influence of the
other is not recognisable, except perhaps to a very close observer. But
I doubt very much that any particular organ of the offspring is, as a
rule, more liable to the influence of the sire than of the dam, or _vice
versa_; and the breeder who believes that the sire alone is concerned in
moulding the external form of the offspring, and who consequently pays
no attention to this point in the dam, will often find himself out in
his reckonings. In order to be certain of a satisfactory result, the dam
should in every respect be equal to the sire. In practice, however, this
is not always the case, for as sires are so few as compared with the
number of dams, the greatest efforts have been directed towards the
improvement of the former.

There is, or ought to be, a familiar maxim with breeders, that "like
begets like, or the likeness of an ancestor." This is a "wise saw," of
which there are many "modern instances:" the excellencies or defects of
sire or dam are certain to be transmitted through several generations,
though they may not appear in all. As a general rule, good animals will
produce a good, and defective animals a defective, offspring, but it
sometimes happens that a bull or cow, of the best blood, is decidedly
inferior, whilst really good animals are occasionally the produce of
parents of "low degree." If the defects or excellencies of animals were
ineradicable there would be no need for the science of breeding; but by
the continual selection of only the most superior animals for breeding
purposes the defects of a species gradually disappear, and the good
qualities are alone transmitted. As, however, animals that are used as
food for man are to some extent in an abnormal condition, the points
which may be excellencies in that state, would not have been such in the
original condition of the animal. We find, therefore, that the improved
breeds of oxen and sheep exhibit some tendency to revert to their
original condition, and it is only by close attention to the diet,
breeding, and general management of these animals that this tendency can
be successfully resisted. Sometimes, however, an animal of even the best
breed will "return to nature," or will acquire some undesirable quality;
such an animal should be rejected for breeding purposes, for its defects
would in all probability be transmitted to its descendants, near or
remote. A case, which admirably illustrates this point, is recorded in
the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1813, and it is sufficiently
interesting to be mentioned here:--

    Seth Wright, who possessed a small farm on the Charles River,
    about sixteen miles from Boston, had a small flock, consisting
    of fifteen ewes and one ram. One of these ewes, in 1791, produced
    a singular-shaped male lamb. Wright was advised to kill his former
    ram and keep this new one in place of it; the consequence was, the
    formation of a new breed of sheep, which gradually spread over a
    considerable part of New England, but the introduction of the Merino
    has nearly destroyed them again. This new variety was called the
    Otter, or "Ankon" breed. They are remarkable for the shortness of
    their legs, and the crookedness of their forelegs, like an elbow.
    They are much more feeble and much smaller than the common sheep,
    and less able to break over low fences; and this was the reason
    of their being continued and propagated.


Here we have an instance of an animal propagating a defect through
a great number of descendants, though it had not acquired it from
its own ancestors. It is, however, probable that occasionally a male
descendant of this short-legged ram possessed considerably longer organs
of locomotion than the founder of his breed; and, consequently, if
selected for breeding purposes might become the founder of a long-legged
variety, in which, however, a couple of pairs of short-legs would
occasionally present themselves. I have a notion that the higher animals
are in the scale of being, the greater is their tendency to transmit
their acquired good or bad habits to their posterity. Dogs are, perhaps,
the most intelligent of the inferior animals, and it is well known
that they transmit to their offspring their acquired as well as their
natural habits. I doubt very much that those most stupid of creatures,
guinea-pigs, possess this property in any sensible degree; or, indeed,
that like the canine tribe, they can be readily made to acquire
artificial peculiarities: but there once flourished a "learned pig,"
and it would be worth inquiring whether or not its descendants, like the
descendants of the trained setter, and pointer, were at all benefited by
the education of their ancestor. I shall conclude this part of my subject
in the words of Professor Tanner: "In all cases where the breed has been
carefully preserved pure, great benefit will result from doing so. The
character of a breed becomes more and more concentrated and confirmed in
a pedigree animal, and this character is rendered more fully hereditary
in proportion to the number of generations through which it has been
transmitted. By the aid of pedigree, purity of blood may be insured, and
a systematic plan adopted by which we can perpetuate distinct families,
and thereby obtain a change of blood without its being a cross. It is
evident that any one adopting a systematic arrangement will be able to
do this more effectually than another without this aid. This is the more
important when the number of families is small, as is the case with
Devons and Herefords, especially the former. The individual animals from
which the Devons are descended are very limited in number, and in a few
hands; but, with some honourable exceptions, little attention is given
to this point. The importance is rendered evident by the decreasing size
of the breed, the number of barren heifers, and the increased delicacy
of constitution shown in the stock of many breeders of that district who
are not particular in this respect. The contrast between such herds,
and those in which more care and judgment are exercised, renders the
advantages of attention to pedigree very evident; for here the strength
of constitution is retained, together with many of the advantages of
this valuable breed."


SECTION II.

THE BREEDS OF STOCK.

The nature of the animal determines, as I have already stated, the
proportion of its food carried off in its increase; but this point is
also greatly influenced by its _variety_, or _breed_. Certain breeds
which have for a long period been kept on bulky food, and obliged
to roam in quest of it, appear to have acquired a normal tendency to
_leanness_. No doubt, if they were supplied with highly nutritious
food for many successive generations, these breeds might eventually
exhibit as great a tendency to fatten as they now do to remain in a
lean condition. As it is, the horned cattle of Kerry, Wales, and some
other regions, rarely become fat, no matter how abundantly they may be
supplied with fattening food. On the other hand, the Herefords, but more
especially the Shorthorns, exhibit a natural disposition to obesity, and
such animals alone should be stall-fed. It is noteworthy that animals
which are naturally disposed to yield abundance of milk are often the
best adapted for fattening; but it would appear that the continuous
use of highly fattening food, and the observance of the various other
conditions in the _forcing_ system, diminish the activity of the lacteal
secretion, and increase the tendency to fatness in the races of the
bovine tribe. The Shorthorns were at one time famous for their milking
capabilities, but latterly their galactophoric reputation has greatly
declined. Still I am disposed to believe, that if some of those animals
were placed under conditions favorable to the improvement of dairy
stock, herds of Shorthorn milch cows could be obtained which would vie
in their own line with the famous fat-disposed oxen of the same breed.

In sheep the tendency to early maturity and to fatten is greatly
influenced by the breed. The Leicester, even when kept on inferior
pasture, fattens so rapidly that in eighteen months it is fit for the
butcher; whilst the Merino, though supplied with excellent herbage, must
be preserved for nearly four years before it is ready for the shambles.
The crossing of good herds has resulted in the development of numerous
varieties, all remarkable for their aptitude to fatten and to arrive
early at maturity. The Leicester--itself supposed to be a cross--has
greatly improved the Lincoln, and the Hampshire and Southdown have
produced an excellent cross. Of course, each breed and cross has its
admirers; indeed, the differences of opinion which prevail in relation
to the relative merits of the Lincoln and the Leicester--the Southdown
and the Shropshiredown--the Dorset and the Somerset--occasionally
culminate into newspaper controversies of an exceedingly ascerb
character. There is no doubt but that particular breeds of sheep
thrive in localities and under conditions which are inimical to other
varieties; but still it is equally evident that, _caeteris paribus_, one
kind of sheep will store up in its increase a larger proportion of its
food than another kind, and will arrive earlier at maturity. It is the
knowledge of this fact which has led to the great estimation in which
are held some half-dozen out of the numerous breeds and cross-breeds
of that animal. In 1861 an interesting experiment was made by the
Parlington Farmers' Club with the object of testing the relative merits
of several varieties of sheep. The results are shown in the tables:--

  TABLE I.

  ----------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------
                  | Live Weight of Six Wethers         |Weights gained
                  | when Shorn, 26th February, 1862.   |during the time of
                  |       +--------------------------- |Feeding from the
                  |       | Weight of Mutton when      |11th November, 1861,
  Description of  |       | Slaughtered.               |to 14th February, 1862.
  Class of Sheep. |       |       +------+------+------+-------+-------+-------
                  |       |       |Weight|Weight|Weight|       |       |
                  |       |       |  of  |  of  |  of  |In Live|  In   | In
                  |       |       |Tallow| Wool.|Pelts.|Weight.|Mutton.| Wool.
  ----------------+-------+-------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------
                  |st. lb.|st. lb.|   lb.|   lb.|   lb.|st. lb.|st. lb.|lb. oz.
  Cross from      |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
    the Teeswater | 85  3 | 53  1 |   106|    43|    85| 13  7 | 8   6 | 14  5
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  North Sheep     | 83 12 | 53 12 |    96|43-1/2|    83| 12 11 | 8   3 | 14  8
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  Lincolns        | 92  1 | 59 12 |   105|    66|   103| 16  1 |10   7 | 22  0
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  South Downs     | 71  0 | 47  7 |97-1/4|    28|65-3/4| 11 13 | 8   0 |  9  5
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  Shropshire Downs| 85  6 | 53  1 |   103|42-1/2|    91| 15 11 | 9  12 | 14  3
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  Leicesters      | 80  9 | 53  4 |90-1/2|    44|78-1/2| 14 10 | 9  10 | 14 11
                  |       |       |      |      |      |       |       |
  Cotswolds       | 76  5 | 47  6 |    79|    54|    90| 12  6 | 7  11 | 18  0
  ----------------+-------+-------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------


  TABLE II.

  -----------------+--------------------------------------------+-----------+
                   | Value of the preceding                     | Food      |
  Description      | Mutton and Wool so gained.                 | consumed  |
  of Sheep.        +----------------------+---------------------+ during    |
                   | Price of the Mutton. | Price of the Wool.  | time of   |
                   |                      |                     | Feeding.  |
  -----------------+-------+--------------+-------+-------------+-----+-----+
                   |       |              |       |             |Swd. |Lnd. |
                   | p. lb.|              | p. lb.|             |Tnp. |Cke. |
                   +-------+              +-------+             +-----+-----+
                   | d.    | L   s. d.    |  d.   | L  s. d.    | st. | lb. |
  Teeswater, Cross | 6     | 2  19  0     | 18    | 1  1  6     | 978 | 300 |
  North Shropshire | 6     | 2  17  6     | 17-1/2| 1  1  1-3/4 | 914 | 300 |
  Lincolnshire[16] | 5-3/4 | 3  10  5-1/4 | 18    | 1 13  0     | 936 | 363 |
  Southdowns       | 6-1/2 | 3   0  8     | 17    | 0 13  2-1/2 | 684 | 300 |
  Shropshire       | 6-1/4 | 3  11 10-1/2 | 17-1/2| 1  0  7-3/4 | 924 | 300 |
  Leicester        | 5-3/4 | 3   5  2     | 18    | 1  2  0     | 877 | 300 |
  Cotswolds        | 6     | 2  14  6     | 18    | 1  7  0     | 926 | 300 |
  -----------------+-------+--------------+-------+-------------+-----+-----+

  -----------------+------------------+--------------+----------------------+
                   | Value of the     |              | Value of Food        |
                   | Food, Calculating| Value of     | deducted from Value  |
  Description      | Turnips at 6s.   | the Mutton   | of Mutton and Wool,  |
  of Sheep.        | 8d., and Cake at | and Wool.    | showing real value of|
                   | L10 10s. per ton.|              | the different sheep. |
  -----------------+------------------+--------------+----------------------+
                   |                  |              |                      |
                   |                  |              |                      |
                   |                  |              |                      |
                   |   L  s.  d.      | L   s. d.    |    L   s.  d.        |
  Teeswater, Cross |   3  8  10-1/2   | 4   0      6 |    0  11   7         |
  North Shropshire |   3  6   2-1/2   | 3  18  7-3/4 |    0  12   5         |
  Lincolnshire[16] |   3 13   0-1/4   | 5   3  5-1/4 |    1  10   5         |
  Southdowns       |   2 16   7-1/2   | 3  13 10-1/2 |    0  17   3         |
  Shropshire       |   3  6   7-3/4   | 4  12  6-1/4 |    1   5  10         |
  Leicester        |   3  4   8       | 4   7      2 |    1   2   6         |
  Cotswolds        |   3  6   8-1/2   | 4   1      6 |    0  14   9-1/2     |
  -----------------+------------------+--------------+----------------------+

These results, taken with the customary _grain of salt_, tell well for
the improved Lincoln; they also clearly show the aptitude to fatten,
without much loss in offal, of the Leicester;[17] and they commend to the
lover of good mutton the Shropshire and South-Downs.

In the sixteenth volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society
of England, Mr. Lawes gives some valuable information relative to the
comparative fattening qualities of different breeds of sheep. The
following table, on this author's authority, shows the average food
consumed in producing 100 lbs. increase in live weight:--

  Breed.                    Oil Cake.     Clover.      Swedes.

  Sussex                    297-1/4       285-1/2      3.835-3/4
  Hampshire                 291-1/2       261-1/4      3.966-3/4
  Cross-bred Wethers        264-1/2       251-3/4      3.725-1/4
      Do.    Ewes           263-1/2       250-1/4      3.671
  Leicesters                263-3/4       251-1/4      3.761
  Cotswolds                 253-1/2       216-3/4      3.557-1/2

Some breeds are profitably kept in certain localities, where other kinds
would not pay so well: for example, the Devons, according to Mr. Smith,
are better adapted than larger breeds for "converting the produce of
cold and hilly pastures into meat." It is remarkable that nearly all the
best existing breeds of oxen and sheep are crosses. Major Rudd states
that the dam of Hubback, the famous founder of pure improved Shorthorns,
owed her propensity to fatten to an admixture of Kyloe blood, and also
that the sire of Hubback had a stain of Alderney, or Normandy blood.
Although the Rudd account of the ancestry of Hubback is not accepted by
all the historians of this splendid breed of cattle, there is no doubt
but that the breed owes its origin as much to judicious crossing as to
careful selection of sires and dams. It must not, however, be imagined
that there are no good pure races of stock. There is a perfectly pure,
but now scarce, tribe of Kerry oxen, admirably adapted to poor uplands.
The excellent Southdown sheep, though in every respect immensely
superior to their ancestors in the last century, have not attained to
their present superior state by crossing. The high value placed by
breeders upon good sires and dams in the approved breeds of stock is
shown by the large sums which they frequently realise at sales, or when
the former are let out for service. Bakewell received in one season for
the use of a ram 400 guineas each from two breeders, and they did not
retain the animal during the whole season. Several hundred guineas have
lately been more than once paid for a celebrated tup. Colonel Towneley's
Shorthorn bull, Master Butterfly, was, not long since, disposed of to an
Australian buyer for L1,260. At the sale of Mr. Bates's stock in 1850,
a stock of Shorthorns, including calves, brought on the average L116 5s.
per head. At the Earl Ducie's sale in 1852, a three year old
cow--Duchess--realised 700 guineas.

The color of an animal is, to some extent, a criterion of the purity
of its breed. Roan is a favourite hue with the breeders of Shorthorns.
There have been celebrated sires and dams of that breed perfectly white;
but that color, or rather absence of color, is now somewhat unpopular,
partly from the idea that it is a sign of weakness of constitution--a
notion for which there appears to me to be no foundation in fact.
The slightest spot of black, or even a very dark shade, is regarded
to be a blemish of the most serious kind when observed on the pelt
of a Shorthorn. The Herefords are partly white, partly red; the Devon
possesses in general a deep red hue; the Suffolks are usually of a dun
or faint reddish tint; the Ayrshires are commonly spotted white and red;
and the Kerrys are seen in every shade between a jet black and a deep
red. Uniformity in color would be most desirable in the case of each
variety, and this object could easily be attained if breeders devoted
some attention to it.

_The Form of Animals._--The functions of an animal are arranged by
Bichat, an eminent physiologist, into two classes--those relating to
its nutrition, and those exhibited by its muscular and mental systems.
The first class of functions comprise the _vegetative_, or organic life
of the animal, and the second class constitute its _relative_ life.
Adopting this arrangement, we may say, then, that those animals in which
the vegetative life is far more energetic than the relative life are
best suited for the purposes of the feeder. In tigers, wolves, and dogs
the relative life predominates over the vegetative; the muscles are
almost constantly in a high degree of tension, and the processes of
nutrition are in constant requisition to supply the waste of muscle.
On the other hand, in oxen, sheep, and pigs, at least when in a state
of domesticity, the muscles are not highly developed; they do not
largely tax the vegetative processes, and, consequently, the substances
elaborated under the influence of the vegetative life rapidly increase.
The form of an animal is therefore mainly determined by the activity of
its relative life. In a greyhound, the nervous power of which is highly
developed, the muscles are large and well-knit, the stomach, intended
for the reception of concentrated nutriment only, is small, and the
lungs are exceedingly capacious. In such an animal the arrangements for
the rapid expenditure of nervous power must be perfect. It is not merely
necessary that its muscles should be large and powerful, its lungs must
also admit of deep inspirations of oxygen, whereby the motive power
wielded by these muscles may be rapidly generated. Now, an animal
exactly opposite in organisation to the greyhound would, according
to theory, be just the kind to select for the production of meat.
The greyhound and the horse expend all their food in the production
of motive power; the ox and the sheep, being endowed with but a feeble
muscular organisation, use a smaller proportion of their food for
carrying on the functions of their relative life, consequently, the
weight of their bodies is augmented by the surplus nutriment. It is
clear, then, that an animal of a lymphatic temperament, an indolent
disposition, a low degree of nervous power, and a tendency to rapid
growth, is the _beau ideal_ of a "meat-manufacturing machine." Now, as
the larger the lungs of an animal are, the greater is its capacity for
"burning," or consuming its tissues, one might suppose that small lungs
would be a _desideratum_ in an ox, or other animal destined for the
shambles. This appears to be Liebig's opinion, for in one of his
books he states that "a narrow chest (small lungs) is considered by
experienced agriculturists a sure sign, in pigs, for example, of easy
fattening; and the same remark applies to cows, in reference to the
produce of milk--that is, of butter." On this subject Professor Tanner
makes the following remarks, in his excellent Essay on Breeding and
Rearing Cattle:[18]--"In our high-bred animals we find a small liver
and a small lung, accompanied with a gentle and peaceful disposition.
Now, these conditions, which are so desirable for producing fat, are
equally favorable for yielding butter. The diminished organs economise
the consumption of the carbonaceous matters in the blood, hence, more
remains for conversion into fat, but equally prepared for yielding
cream, if the tendency of the animal is equally favorable to the same."
One would imagine, from the foregoing passage, that Mr. Tanner and Baron
Liebig coincided in believing small lungs necessary to rapid fattening;
but in another part of his essay, Tanner thus describes one of the
points indicative of a tendency to fatten early:--"The chest should be
bold and prominent, wide and deep, furnished with a deep but not coarse
dewlap." On comparing the two passages which I have quoted from Tanner's
essay, a contradiction is apparent. Mr. Bowly, Major Rudd, and other
eminent breeders and feeders, appear to regard a capacious chest as the
best sign of a fattening property which an animal could show. Lawes and
Gilbert have recorded the weights of the viscera of a number of animals
which, though supplied with equal quantities of the same kind of food,
attained to different degrees of fatness. On carefully scrutinising
these records, I failed to perceive any constant relation between the
weight of their lungs and their tendency to fatten rapidly. Some animals
with large lungs converted a larger proportion of their food into meat
than others with smaller respiratory organs, and _vice versa_. In a
state of nature, there is no doubt but that the lungs of the ox and of
the sheep are moderately large; and it is evident that in their case, as
well as in that of man, over-feeding and confinement tend to diminish
their muscular energy, and, of course, to decrease the capacity of the
lungs. That such a practice does not tend to the improvement of the
health of an animal is perfectly evident, but then the perfect ox of
nature is very different from the perfect ox of man. The latter is
a wide departure from the original type of its species: any marked
development of its nervous system is undesirable; and it is valuable
in proportion as its purely vegetative functions are most strongly
manifested. A young bullock, therefore, of this kind would, no doubt,
be the most economical kind to rear, provided that it was perfectly
healthy, and capable of assimilating the liberal amount of food supplied
to it. But it rarely happens that a young animal with a weakly chest
turns out other than a scrofulous or otherwise diseased adult. On the
whole, then, I am disposed to believe that whilst naturally small-lunged
species may be more prone to fatten than large-chested ones, it is not
the case that small-chested individuals fatten more rapidly than larger
lunged individuals of the same kind.

The conditions under which oxen, sheep, and pigs have been so long
maintained in civilised countries, must have diminished the capacity of
their chests in relation to other parts of their bodies; and it may be
fairly doubted if any good could result by reducing to still smaller
dimensions those most important organs. Probably the lungs and hearts of
the improved breeds of stock are already too small, and that it is only
the individuals which are least affected in this respect that answer to
Mr. Bowly's description of a fat-disposed beast. Whether or not small
lungs are desirable in a bullock or milch cow, it is certain that a ram
or a bull should be possessed of a capacious chest, for otherwise he
will have but little vigour, and will be likely to produce a weakly
offspring. A sire should be a perfectly developed animal in every
respect--sound lungs and heart, and not over fat. It is sufficient that
it belongs to a good fattening breed; but to produce offspring with a
tendency to fatness and early maturity, it is not necessary that the
sire should himself be obese. It is to be regretted that so many sires
of the Shorthorns and other improved varieties should be used for
breeding purposes, when their hearts and lungs have become, by
over-feeding the animals, unfitted for the proper discharge of their
function. The progeny of such sires must _naturally_ inherit the
_acquired taint_ of their diseased progenitors, and prove weakly and
unhealthy animals.

With respect to the general outline structure of a bull, he should have
a small, well-set head, rounded ribs, straight legs, small bones, and
sound internal organs. The following are considered to be the best
points in a Shorthorn bull:--A short and moderately small head, with
tapering muzzle and broad forehead, furnished with short, white,
curved, graceful looking horns; bright, yet mild, large eyes, placed in
prominent orbits; dilated nostrils, and flesh-colored nose, and long,
thin ears. The neck should be broad, deep, and muscular, sloping in a
graceful line from the shoulder to the head. The chest should be wide,
deep, projecting, but level in front. The shoulders should be oblique,
the blades well set in towards the ribs. The forelegs should be stout,
muscular above the knee, and slender below it; the hind legs should be
slender to the hock, and from thence increase in thickness to the
buttocks, which should be well developed. The carcass should be well
rounded at each side, but level on the back and on the belly. There
should be no hollows between the shoulder and the ribs, the line from
the highest part of the shoulder to the insertion of the tail should be
a perfect level. The flank should be full, the loins broad, and the tail
finely formed and only partially covered with hair. The skin is a prime
point: it must be covered with hair of a roan, or other _fashionable_
color, and communicate to the hand of the experienced feeler, a peculiar
sensation, which it is impossible to describe. With regard to this
point, I cannot do better than quote the words of an experienced
"handler":--

"A nice or good judge of cattle or sheep, with a slight touch of the
fingers upon the fatting points of the animal--viz., the hips, rump,
ribs, flanks, breast, twist, shoulder score, &c. will know immediately
whether it will make fat or not, and in which part it will be the
fattest. I have often wished to convey in language that idea or
sensation we acquire by the touch or feel of our fingers, which enables
us to form a judgment when we are handling an animal intended to be
fatted, but I have as often found myself unequal to that wish. It is
very easy to know where an animal is fattest which is already made fat,
because we can evidently feel a substance or quantity of fat--all those
parts which are denominated the fatting points; but the difficulty is to
explain how we know or distinguish animals, in a lean state, which will
make fat and which will not--or rather, which will make fat in such
points or parts, and not in others--which a person of judgment (_in
practice_) can tell, as it were, instantaneously. I say _in practice_,
because I believe that the best judges _out of practice_ are not able to
judge with precision--at least, I am not. We say this beast _touches_
nicely upon its ribs, hips, &c., &c., because we find a mellow, pleasant
feel on those parts; but we do not say soft, because there are some of
this same sort of animals which have a soft, loose handle, of which we
do not approve, because, though soft and loose, have not the mellow feel
above mentioned. For though they both handle soft and loose, yet we know
that the one will make fat and the other will not; and in this lies the
difficulty of the explanation. We clearly find a particular kindliness
or pleasantness in the feel of the one much superior to the other, by
which we immediately conclude that this will make fat, and the other not
so fat; and in this a person of judgment, and _in practice_, is very
seldom mistaken."

In many respects the good points in a Shorthorn cow resemble those in
the male of that breed, but in others there is considerable difference.
As I have described in prose the excellencies which a bull should
possess, I will now give a poetical summary of the good points of a cow
of that breed, extracted from the _Journal of Agriculture_, and composed
evidently by an excellent breeder and poet, Mr. Carr:--

  The following features constitute, I trow,
  The beau ideal of a short-horn cow:--
  Frame massive, round, deep-barrell'd, and straight-back'd;
  Hind quarters level, lengthy, and well pack'd;
  Thighs wide, flesh'd inwards, plumb almost to hock;
  Twist deep, conjoining thighs in one square block;
  Loin broad and flat, thick flesh'd, and free from dip;
  Back ribs "well home," arch'd even with the hip;
  Hips flush with back, soft-cushion'd, not too wide;
  Flanks full and deep, well forward on the side;
  Fore ribs well-flesh'd, and rounded like a drum;
  Fore flanks that even with the elbow come;
  Crop "barrell'd" flush with shoulders and with side;
  Girth large and round--not deep alone, but wide;
  Shoulders sloped back, thick cover'd wide at chine;
  Points snug, well-flesh'd, to dew-lap tapering fine;
  Neck vein fill'd up to well-clothed shoulder-point;
  Arm full above, turn'd in at elbow-joint;
  Legs short and straight, fine boned 'neath hock and knee;
  Belly cylindrical, from drooping free;
  Chest wide between the legs, with downward sweep;
  Brisket round, massive, prominent, and deep;
  Neck fine at head, fast thickening towards its base;
  Head small, scope wide, fine muzzle and dish'd face;
  Eyes prominent and bright, yet soft and mild;
  Horns waxy, clear, of medium size, unfiled;
  Tail fine, neat hung, rectangular with back;
  Hide soft, substantial, yielding, but not slack;
  Hair furry, fine, thick set, of colour smart;
  Udder well forward, with teats wide apart.
  These points proportion'd well delight the eye
  Of grazier, dairyman, and passer-by;
  And these to more fastidious minds convey
  Appearance stylish, feminine, and gay.


_Breeds of the Ox._--The Shorthorned cattle are now generally regarded
as the most valuable breed in these countries. They are the descendants
of a short-horned breed of cattle which existed for centuries in the
north-east of England. They were not held in much estimation, their
flesh being coarse; but the cows of this breed yielded abundance of
milk. In the eighteenth century this breed, it is said, was greatly
improved by a large infusion of blood from Dutch Shorthorns: but it is
very doubtful that any such event took place, for during that period
the importation of cattle into Great Britain was prohibited by very
stringent laws. The present race of Shorthorns owe most of their
valuable qualities to the brothers, Charles and Robert Colling, of the
county of Durham. The former was the more successful breeder, and
established the celebrated breed of Ketton Shorthorns. His whole process
appears to have consisted in the careful selection of parents, and in
"close" breeding. He must, however, have been an admirable judge of the
good points of the ox, for beginning with animals not worth more on an
average than L10 each, he produced in less than a quarter of a century
a stock worth on the average L150 each. The most famous bull of Charles
Colling's was Comet. The sale of this animal realised the handsome sum
of 1,000 guineas. The bull Hubback is said by many writers to have been
the great improver of Shorthorn blood. He was bought by Robert Colling
for the trifling sum of L8; but although this animal was kept by both
Collings for three years, there is good reason to believe that they made
but little use of him. It would appear, indeed, that to the cows first
used by the Collings--Lady Maynard, and young Strawberry--many of the
good qualities of this breed are traceable. Shorthorns are now to be
found in almost every part of the United Kingdom, capable of maintaining
heavy stock. In Ireland the breed has been greatly improved, and it is
gradually supplanting most of the other varieties.

Shorthorn males have a short, wide head, covered very often with short
curly hair; the muzzle is taper; the ear rather long and narrow; the eye
large, and bright, and mild. The shape is symmetrical, the carcass deep,
the back level, ribs spreading out widely, and the limbs fine. The color
is a mixture of red and white, sometimes a rich roan. The females are
not so large in the head, which tapers more, and the neck is much
thinner.

The DEVONS are not so large as the Shorthorns. Their shape is
symmetrical; fine head, horns of medium size, often tapering gracefully;
rich red or orange red color; fore-quarters rather oblique. The meat of
this breed is much esteemed: they yield excellent milk, but in rather
limited quantity; and the bullocks answer the plough much better than
many other kinds do. These animals arrive early at maturity.

The HEREFORDS are a rather small-boned breed; their horns are medium
sized, straight or slightly curved upwards; their color is dark red;
neat shoulders, thin thighs, and wide sirloin. They fatten well, but are
not generally kept on dairy farms. In many respects they resemble the
Devons.

The AYRSHIRES have a tapering head, fine neck, and large, bony, but not
coarse carcass; flat ribs; short and rather ugly horns; their skin is
soft, and covered with hair, which is usually red and white in spots.
The Ayrshire cows are invaluable for dairy purposes.

The POLLED ANGUS, POLLED ABERDEENS, and POLLED GALLOWAYS are very large
cattle, with big heads, unfurnished with horns. Their color is in
general a decided black, but occasionally it exhibits a mixture of black
and white. Their flesh is in general not of the best quality, but some
of their crosses with Shorthorns yield excellent meat, and at an early
age, too.

The KYLOES are a breed peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland. They are
rather rough, but very picturesque animals, covered with long, shaggy
hair. Their horns are rather long, and curve upwards. Their hair is
differently colored--red, yellow, dun, and black, the latter being the
prevailing hue. No variety of the ox yields a sweeter meat than the
Kyloes, and other mountain breeds of these countries. The animals,
however, arrive slowly to maturity, and in this respect there is great
room for improvement. These mountain-bred animals are now transferred
in large numbers to lowland tillage farms, where the fattening process
is more expeditiously performed. There are excellent crosses between
Shorthorn bulls and Highland cows.

LONGHORNED CATTLE are rapidly advancing towards extinction. At one time
they were the chief breed kept by most farmers. In general they may be
regarded as an inferior variety, being slow feeders, and producing
rather coarse beef. They are, however, capable of great improvement, as
instanced in the case of Bakewell's celebrated Longhorn herds.

The KERRYS are a diminutive breed, peculiar to Ireland. They have small
heads, fine necks, fine horns of medium length, and curved upwards near
their summits. They have a soft skin; the hair is generally black,
interspersed with a few white streaks; sometimes their color is red, and
occasionally brown. They are a very hardy race, being indigenous to
mountains. Their flesh is very good, more especially if the animals have
been kept on fattening food. The Kerrys are good milch cows.

The ALDERNEYS are a small race of oxen with deer-like faces. They
exhibit various shades of red, white, brown, and roan. No cows yield
better milk, or larger quantities of that fluid.

_Sheep._--The different breeds of sheep are classified under three
heads--viz., _Long-woolled_, _Short-woolled_, and _Middle-woolled_.

The LEICESTER is, perhaps, the most celebrated breed of sheep reared in
these countries. It was immensely improved by Bakewell about a century
ago, and the breed is often termed the Dishley, after the name of
Bakewell's residence. This sheep has a wide, clean head, broad forehead,
fine eyes, long, thin ears, thick neck, round body, deep chest,
straight, broad back, high ribs, and muscular thighs. The wool is long,
very thick, and fine. At from fifteen to eighteen months old, the
Leicester weighs from 25 to 30 lbs. per quarter; but a fat animal often
weighs from 38 to 40 lbs. per quarter. The fleece weighs from 6 to 8
lbs. This breed is well adapted for Ireland. It is reared on very poor
land: but in order to maintain its good quality, this sheep requires
abundance of food, and also good shelter during the winter.

The LINCOLN is distinguished for its large bones and strong muscles.
Originally a gaunt and ugly animal, it has of late years been much
improved. Indeed, the prices lately realised by Lincoln sheep are
extremely high. The Lincoln has a long, white face, long body, and thick
legs. The wool is long, thick, and moderately fine. The flesh of the
Lincoln is lean, owing to its great muscular development. At fifteen
months old it yields about 30 lbs. weight per quarter. It is said that
a Lincoln wether has attained the weight of 304-1/2 lbs. The average
weight of the wool of a hogget is 9-1/2 lbs.

The COTSWOLD breed arose in the Cotswold hills, in Gloucestershire.
In this variety the skeleton is large, the chest capacious, the back
broad and straight, and the ribs well arched. It has good quarters,
and a finely-arched neck. It is distinguished by a large tuft of
wool--"fore-top," on the forehead. It fattens early, and produces about
25 lbs. per quarter when fifteen months old, and 40 lbs. when two years
old. The wool is rather coarse; its yield is about 8 lbs.

The CHEVIOT has a long body, long face, long legs, and long ears. The
chest projects slightly, and is rather narrow. The forehead is bare of
wool; the legs and face are white, sometimes approaching to a dun shade.
Weight from 70 to 80 lbs.; weight of fleece, from 3 to 4 lbs. The wool
is of excellent quality, and is used largely in the manufacture of
tweeds. The Cheviot is a mountain sheep, and, as might be expected, its
flesh is well flavored. There are several crosses of the Cheviot with
the Leicester, the Southdown, and the Shropshire.

The SOUTHDOWN is generally regarded as the best breed for wool reared in
these countries. It is indigenous to the chalk hills of Kent, Sussex,
Hampshire, and Dorsetshire. It has a small head; its back is broad and
straight; the ribs spring out at nearly right angles from the vertebrae.
It is rather light in the fore-quarters, and full in the hind quarters.
Its chest is pretty deep; its face and legs are grey or brown. The wool
of the Southdown is short, and extremely fine; the fleece weighs about 3
lbs. This sheep arrives early at maturity. It weighs at 15 months old
about 80 lbs. The flesh is very well flavored.

THE SHROPSHIRE is said to combine in itself the good qualities of the
Southdown, the Cotswold, and the Leicester. It resembles the Southdown
more than any other breed, having the same grey, or brownish grey hue,
and a similar shape. It is, however, larger than the Southdown, and
yields a larger quantity of wool. This breed is becoming a great
favorite in both England and Ireland.

The BLACK-FACED sheep is peculiar to Scotland. It is equipped with
horns, has a bold long face, and possesses a tuft of wool on its
forehead; its limbs are strong, and its body is somewhat long. The wool
of this breed is very coarse, the fleece weighs about 3-1/2 lbs. The
average weight of this sheep is 75 lbs., the quality of the mutton is
excellent, but it is long before it becomes matured. There are several
other breeds of the sheep, but they are of far less importance than
those which I have described.

_Breeds of the Pig._--There are several breeds of this useful animal, of
which those known as BERKSHIRE and YORKSHIRE appear to be the greatest
favorites. The Berkshire is black or dusky brown, very rarely reddish
brown. It has a very small head. Its sides are extremely deep, and its
legs very short. There are several sub-varieties of the Yorkshire. This
breed is white, has a compact body, and very broad sides. The head is
very small, somewhat like that of the Berkshire. Both Berkshire and
Yorkshire pigs attain to the enormous weight of 1,000 lbs. The old Irish
"racer" pig is the least profitable kind to keep, but fortunately it is,
as a pure breed, nearly extinct.

_Breeds of the Horse._--There are a great many breeds of horses. The
Shetland pony is so small, that many specimens are no larger than a
Newfoundland dog; on the other hand, Clydesdale horses sometimes attain
to almost elephantine proportions. There is a wide difference between
the bull-like Suffolk Punch and the greyhound-like _racer_. The English
and Irish racer is said to owe its origin to a cross between the old
English light-legged breed and the Arabian. The most valuable kind of
carriage horse is the joint product of the draught-horse and the racer.
The dray-horse of these countries has a large share of Flemish blood in
him. The best horses for agricultural purposes are unquestionably the
CLYDESDALE and the SUFFOLK PUNCH. The latter is perhaps to be preferred
in most instances, especially on light lands. Very light and feeble
horses are the most expensive variety on almost any kind of farm; for
whilst they consume nearly as much food as the most powerful animals,
and are therefore nearly as costly, they are incapable of effectively
performing their work. A large proportion of the farm horses used by the
small farmers of Ireland are totally unsuited for tillage purposes. On
the other hand, there is no need to employ horses equal in size to the
ponderous creatures that draw brewers' carts. Moderate sized horses,
with well rounded, compact bodies, and muscular but not too heavy limbs,
are the kind best adapted for farm purposes. In Ireland, where there are
not fewer than 600,000 horses, a considerable infusion of blood from
Clydesdales and Suffolk Punches is much required.

_Hunters and Racers._--There is a strong tendency in the human mind to
look with a regretful feeling to the past, and to compare it to the
disadvantage of the present. It is a general belief with most people
that the old time was the best time; that the seasons were more genial
formerly; that provisions were cheaper and more abundant; that men were
taller, and stouter, and healthier; that, in a word, everything was
better in the days of yore than it is now, and that degeneracy and
effeteness are the prevailing characteristics of our age. Philosophers,
statists, and political economists tell us that all this regret for the
"good old time" is mis-spent sympathy; for that we are in every respect
superior--in physique, health, morals, and wealth--to our ancestors. On
the whole, I rather incline myself to this comfortable philosophy; but
we must admit that we have not progressed in all things since the times
of our fathers.

In a work entitled "A Comparative View of the Form and Character of the
English Racer and Saddle Horse during the Last and Present Centuries,"
published by Hookham, of Old Bond Street, London, it is proved very
clearly that the English race-horse has sadly degenerated. The author
very properly traces the cause of its decay to the avarice of the
turfites: they look upon the noble animal as a mere gambling machine;
and they sacrifice all its other qualities to the excessive development
of that one which is likely to put money in their pockets. Formerly,
gentlemen kept horses for their own sakes--for their admiration and
enjoyment of one of the most beautiful, docile, and useful of animals.
They were incessant in their efforts to develop into perfection all the
really valuable points in the animal; and the result was, that the
English and Irish racer of the last century was unmatched for strength,
speed, and endurance. Models of this splendid race of horses are seldom
to be found at the present time; but there are, perhaps, sporting men
living who saw them in the celebrated Mambrino, Sweet Briar, and Sweet
William. Those horses possessed compact bodies, capacious lungs, strong
loins, large joints, and enormous masses of muscular tissue on the
shoulder-blades and arms. They were good weight-carrying hunters as well
as racers, and they could carry eight stones over a six miles heat,
or twelve stones over a four miles one. The Irish horses, at least,
were capable of safely carrying thirteen stones over what would now be
considered a very ugly ditch, and could get over a long steeplechase in
a style which would astonish the owners of the modern "weeds." Since the
distance to be traversed by competing horses has been reduced from the
old-fashioned three heats of four miles each to a single run of a mile
or two, and also since the weight imposed upon the animals has been
reduced to six or seven stones, from ten to twelve, the anatomical
structure of the race-horse has undergone a remarkable and serious
alteration. The back has become very long, the sides flat, the loins
weak, the limbs long and very thin; and this alteration in structure has
been attended by weakness of constitution and a remarkable tendency
to disease. The modern horse has attained to a remarkable degree of
rapidity of locomotion, but it has been at the expense of its vigor,
endurance, and health; it can run with great velocity for a short
distance, but in a four-mile heat, and mounted by a man of average
weight, a mediocre horse of the style of the middle of the last century
would come to the post long before the winner of the last St. Leger.

The decay of the breed of horses in this country is a serious matter,
and the attention of all who are interested in the preservation of this
animal should be earnestly and promptly directed towards discovering
the means of regeneration. My remarks are directed towards racers and
hunters. The quality of speed which they possess has been developed
to an extent which is incompatible with the development of equally
essential properties. Encouragement should be given to the production of
weight-carrying hunters; steeple-chasing should be restored to its old
state, when only a powerful horse had a chance of success. The quality
of speed should be promoted in the animal up to a certain point; but
when the development of this attribute begins to cause a loss of
strength and endurance, it is high time to check it. There are a few
horses at present which are strong and moderately fast: why should not
steeple-chasing be of the kind which would call this style of animal
into competition? Only a "weed" can now enter with any probability of
success at a race of this kind; and when he has won it, of what use
is he as a good hunter? What we want are good, stout, healthy horses,
capable of carrying, in good style, twelve stones weight over a rough
country; and the object of steeple-chasing should be the production of
such a race of horses.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Footnote 17: Improved by Leicester blood.]

[Footnote 18: The object of the first breeders of the Leicester was
to produce a sheep which would yield a great carcass, and small offal
weight. So far as the results of these experiments go, I think the idea
of the founder of this breed has been realised.]

[Footnote 19: "Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of
Scotland," for July, 1860.]




PART III.

ON THE MANAGEMENT OF LIVE STOCK.


SECTION I.

THE OX.

_Breeding Cows._--The period of gestation in the cow is about nine
months. The earliest time at which it is at all safe to breed from these
animals is when they are one year and eight months old. Shorthorns breed
early, whilst the mountain varieties are seldom in calf before they are
three years old. The practice of very early breeding, though approved of
by some extensive rearers of stock, is not to be commended for sound
physiological reasons. Cows calve at all times of the year; but the most
favorable time is near the end of winter, or in early spring. The cows
should at this time be in fair condition--neither too fat nor too lean.
Parturition should take place in a roomy, covered place, provided with
abundance of clean litter. If such a place be not available, a nice
paddock close to the house must answer. After having given birth to
the calf, the cow should receive an oatmeal drink, or some warm and
nutritious mash, and afterwards be liberally fed. The cow is usually
allowed to run dry four or five weeks before calving: this period should
not be curtailed; on the contrary, it would be better to extend it to
six weeks, so as not to allow her condition to become too poor.

_The Wintering of Young Stock._--There are certain localities wherein
the rearing of young stock is one of the easiest tasks which devolve
upon the farmer. Well-drained and shady fields, yielding abundance of
sound herbage, and through which streams of _pure_ water unceasingly
flow, are just the proper _locale_ for economically feeding young
animals. But there are districts in which those favorable conditions do
not exist; yet they are not better adapted to other uses. It is only the
feeders of young stock in wet, moory, sandy, or undrained, heavy soils
who really have cause for anxiety and incessant watchfulness. In rearing
a calf the great object is to cause a rapid and uninterrupted increase
in the weight of its body. At first the food of the animal should be
furnished solely from the maternal founts; but at an early stage of its
existence--about the third or fourth week--other food may wholly, or in
part, be substituted for the natural aliment. It is important that no
great interval should elapse between the hours of feeding. The digestive
apparatus of the young animal is small, and its powers of assimilation
are very energetic. The food with which it is supplied should,
therefore, be given in moderate quantities, and very frequently. This
is, in fact, what takes place when the calf is allowed free access to
its dam; for the instant it feels a desire for aliment, the supply is at
once available. Of course, there may be objections to this plan on the
score of economy; but as a general rule, too much liberality cannot be
exercised in feeding growing animals; and there is nothing more certain
than that the calf which is illiberally fed will never be developed into
a valuable, matured animal. When carefully tended from their birth,
comfortably housed in winter, and abundantly supplied with nutritious
food, it is sometimes wonderful the rapid progress which young stock
make. Mr. Wright mentions a remarkable case of early maturity, which
occurred in his own herd. A young steer, one year old, exhibited all the
development of an animal twice its age. This bullock had been suckled
for three months, whereby it had not only kept its calf-flesh, but
gained and retained a step in advance. Its weight when only a year old
was no less than 50 stones; and as the price of beef at the time was 8s.
9d. per stone, live weight, the carcass of the animal was worth L21 17s.
6d. Mr. Wright offers this fact as a suggestive one to "those farmers who
think of bringing up their calves on old milk, or who would otherwise
stint their growth."

Supposing, then, that we have young stock which had been liberally
treated when in their "baby" state, how are we to most economically
maintain them throughout the winter? In the first place, they should be
kept in warm sheds, and well sheltered from both rain and wind. Some
authorities contend that exercise is necessary to young stock, and deny
that a proper development of the muscles (lean flesh) can take place if
they are cooped up like fattening turkeys during the winter. There is
some truth in this opinion; and if the animals be designed for breeding
or dairy purposes, their freedom of motion should only be partially
restrained. On the other hand, if they be intended for an early
introduction to the shambles, the less exercise they get the greater
will be the profit on their keep. I have known cases where animals were
closely housed for seven months, and yet their health did not appear
to suffer in the slightest degree. In fact, so predominant are the
vegetative functions of the ruminants over their nervous attributes,
that the only essential conditions of their existence are adequate
supplies of good air and food. That the health of these animals does
occasionally suffer when the motions of their bodies are reduced to a
_minimum_ is quite true; but in most of these instances the real cause
is, not the want of exercise, but the want of pure air. The greatest
care should, therefore, be taken in the ventilation of the places where
stock, whether old or young, are kept; and no economy of space or heat
will compensate for the want of wholesome air. Under the fallacious idea
that exposure to cold renders young stock hardy, many farmers turn them
out to eat straw in the open fields in frosty weather. Treatment of this
kind, instead of being productive of good, almost invariably lays the
foundation of disease, which will manifest itself at some stage of the
animal's growth. There are a few favored localities, such as those to
which I have already alluded, where yearlings may be occasionally allowed
a turn through the fields in winter; but on cold clays, wet moors, and
sandy soils the young stock should never be permitted to leave their
sheds or courts from the time they are housed till late in the spring.

Young stock are best fed on good meadow hay and turnips, with a moderate
supplement of oil-cake; this, however, is expensive feeding in many
farms, and a little filling-in may be done with cheaper or more easily
obtainable stuffs. A mixture of cut chaff, with pulped mangels, is a
good substitute for the more costly hay; and particularly in the case
of animals intended for breeding or for the dairy. The roots should be
pulped, and allowed to remain until, owing to a slight fermentation,
they become warm. This change takes place in from twenty-four hours to
sixty hours, according to the temperature; but the fermentation should
not be carried farther than the earliest stage. The heated pulp should
then be thoroughly mixed with the chaff, and the compound, after an
hour or two, will be ready for use. A little chopped hay--no matter if
inferior or slightly mildewed--may be substituted for the chaff, and
turnips employed instead of the mangels, but the latter are the more
desirable roots.

Until lately, the use of oil-cake was confined to fattening animals,
but latterly it is freely given to calves, even when they are only
a month old; and there is no doubt but that it is a suitable and
economical food for store stock. It is, however, sometimes given in
excess: from half a pound to two and a half pounds daily will be
sufficient for animals under one year; and this addition to their food
will be found to exercise a beneficial influence on them when they
are placed in stalls for finishing. The experience of several eminent
breeders has proved that fattening beasts, which had in their youth
a supply of oil-cake, or its equivalent, invariably store up a larger
portion of their food than those which had been reared on hay and roots
only.

Mr. George Stodart, of Cultercullen, an Aberdeenshire farmer, describes,
in the _Irish Farmer's Gazette_, his method of rearing calves:--

    I occupy (says Mr. Stodart) a farm of 380 acres. I usually rear
    twenty-four calves yearly, and buy in sixteen one-year-olds.
    I generally breed from cross cows (the same as mentioned above),
    served by a pure Shorthorn bull. When the calves are dropped I put
    two calves to suck one cow for six months. In autumn, spring calves
    are put into the house upon turnips and straw, with about 1 lb. of
    oil-cake per day to each, until they are put out to grass in spring
    following, at which time they are one year old. Then, of course,
    they have grass in summer, and at the approach of winter they are
    again housed upon turnips and straw, which bring them to be two
    years old in spring. Now they are sent out to the best grass, and
    again brought into the house at the beginning of September, and
    fed on turnips and straw until the end of November or middle of
    December, when they usually fetch from L25 to L32 a-head. This
    year (1864), however, they will average L32. a-head. Before selling
    I give each 3-1/2 lbs. of oil-cake per day for six weeks, and during
    this time they have swede turnips; at other times yellow. We give as
    much turnips at all times as they can eat.


Mr. Bowick, in his excellent paper on the rearing of calves, published
in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, gives the following
information on this subject:--

    We consider it desirable to allow the calf to remain with its
    dam for the first three or four days after calving.

    Not much trouble is generally experienced in getting it to take
    to the pail. We find it better to miss the evening's meal, and
    next morning a very little attention induces the majority of them
    to partake of what is set before them. At most the guidance of the
    fingers may be wanted for the first meal or two.

    As regards the quantity of milk which is needful to keep a
    moderately bred Shorthorn calf in a thriving condition, we have
    found the following allowance to come pretty near the mark,
    although the appetite of calves varies, both in individuals and
    at different times with the same animal:--

    1st week with the dam; or 4 quarts per day, at two meals.

    2nd to 4th week, 5 to 6 quarts per day, at two meals.

    4th to 6th week, 6 to 7 quarts per day, at two meals.

    And the quantity need not, during the ensuing six weeks (after
    which it is weaned), exceed a couple of gallons per day. This
    implies that the calf is fed upon new milk only, and that no
    other feeding liquids are employed. But, in addition to the above,
    the calf will, towards the fourth week, begin to eat a little
    green hay; and in a week or two later, some sliced roots, or meal,
    or finely crushed cake, mixed with hay-chaff; and, if really good,
    creditable beasts are wanted--such as will realise L25 a-head from
    the butcher when turned two and a half years old--a little cake
    or meal in their early days will be found a desirable investment.
    In fact, we doubt not but 1 lb. of cake per day to the calf will
    make as much flesh as triple the quantity of cake at any period
    of after life. As regards meal, if that is given with the chaff,
    we prefer oatmeal, or barley-meal, or wheaten flour, but not the
    meal of beans or pease. Others may see it differently, but we
    believe beans to be too heating for any class of young stock. For
    roots, the best we know of is the carrot, grated and mixed with
    the chaff, or sliced thin with a knife and given alone. It is also,
    of all roots, the one which we find them most fond of, and which
    they will most readily take to. As soon as they can eat them
    freely, an immediate reduction in the supply of milk may be made.

    In most articles it holds good in the end that "the best is the
    cheapest." So with the rearing of calves; the best class of food,
    or that above referred to, is found to give the greatest ultimate
    satisfaction. But practically the question often is, how to rear
    good calves with comparatively little new milk, a condition which
    circumstances often render almost imperative; for where dairy
    produce, in any other form, is the chief object, the calves stand
    in a secondary position, and are treated accordingly. But let us
    ask whether you cannot rear good stock under such circumstances
    also? We believe that this may be, and often is done. We manage to
    turn out from twenty-five to thirty calves annually--such as will
    pass muster anywhere--and never use at any one time more than six
    gallons of new milk daily. For this purpose, as well as to obtain
    a regular supply of milk for other purposes, the calves are allowed
    to come at different periods, extending from October to May. Hence
    the calf-house has generally a succession of occupants throughout
    the season; and as one lot are ready to be removed, and placed loose
    in a small hovel, with yard attached, others fill their places.
    We begin with new milk from the pail, which is continued for a
    fortnight after leaving the cow. Then skim-milk--boiled, and allowed
    to cool to the natural warmth--is substituted to the extent of
    one-third of the allowance. In another week the new milk is reduced
    to half, and at the same time, not before, boiled linseed is added
    to the mess.[20] As soon as they take freely to this food, the new
    milk may be replaced with that from the dairy, and the calf is
    encouraged to indulge in a few sliced carrots and the other dry
    foods named.


Mr. Murray, of Overstone, thus states the expense of rearing the calf
until it is two years old, when, after the weaning process is completed,
it is turned out to grass:--

    During the summer they have the run of a grass paddock during
    the day, but return regularly to their yards at night; the
    following winter they are kept in larger yards, and which contain
    a greater number of animals. Their bill of fare for this winter is
    2 lbs. of oil-cake, half a bushel of cut roots, with cut chaff _ad
    libitum_. The chaff has a small quantity of flour or pollard mixed
    with it, is moistened with water, and the whole mass turned over;
    this is done the day previous to using it. By this means they eat
    the chaff with more relish, and moistening it prevents the flour
    being wasted. They are put to grass the following summer, generally
    from the 15th to the 20th of May, or as soon as the pastures are in
    a state to receive them; they remain there on second-rate land till
    about the end of October, when they are brought home and tied up in
    the stalls. The daily allowance is then 4 lbs. linseed-cake, 4 lbs.
    flour--3/4 bean, 1/4 barley--1 bushel of cut roots with cut chaff;
    the flour and chaff is mixed as already described. At about the end
    of December the quantity of cake is increased to 8 lbs., and the
    flour to 6 lbs.; this they continue to receive till they are sold
    to the butcher during the months of March and April, when they
    weigh, on an average, 90 stones of 8 lbs. per bullock, and under
    two years and six months old. At this season of the year beef
    generally makes 5s. per stone--we often make 9s.--but taking that
    as an average would make the value of each beast L22 10s. The cost
    of keeping to this age will be as follows:--

                                                               L  s. d.

    One calf                                                   2  0  0
    Milk, &c., nine weeks                                      1  5  0
    Cake, grass, &c., forty-three weeks, at 1s. 6d.            3  4  6
    Second year, November till May, cake, flour,
      roots, &c., 2s. 6d. per week, for twenty-six weeks       3  5  0
    May till November, grass, twenty-six weeks, at 2s. 6d.     3  5  0
    Third year, November till April, twenty weeks, at 8s.      8  0  0
                                                             ---------
                                                             L20 19  6

    Which leaves a gain to each animal of L1 10s. 6d., besides the
    manure.

_Shelter of Stock._--The great diminution of temperature, and the
falling off in the supply of herbage, that are coincident with the
close of the autumn, render it necessary to remove our cattle from the
open fields, and provide them with some sort of shelter during the
winter months and early part of the spring.

The particular period at which this change of quarters takes place of
course varies, and is, in fact, altogether dependent upon the character
of the season. There are some years in which there is, so to speak, a
kind of relapse of the summer, November being bright and warm, instead
of, as is usually the case, cold and foggy. In such a year there is some
herbage to be picked up until the very end of December. On the other
hand, the latter part of October is often very wet, and October frosts
are by no means uncommon. Tempestuous, biting winds in November, or
torrents of rain, or both, tell severely upon the poor animals in the
fields, even where there is abundance of herbage; and hence, should such
weather take place at the latter part of October, the true economy would
be to remove the animals at once to sheltered places.

Nothing lowers the temperature of the surface so rapidly as a cold wind.
Captain Parry, one of the explorers of the Arctic regions, states that
his men, when well clothed, suffered no inconvenience on exposure to the
low temperature of 55 degrees below zero, provided the air was perfectly
calm; but the slightest breeze, when the air was at this temperature,
caused the painful sensation produced by intense cold. I could adduce
the experience of many practical men in favor of the plan of affording
shelter to animals, but more especially to those kept in situations
much exposed to winds. Mr. Nesbit relates a case bearing on this
point:--A farmer in Dorsetshire put up twenty or thirty sheep, under
the protection of a series of upright double hurdles lined with straw,
having as a sort of roof, or lean-to, a single hurdle, also lined with
straw. A like number of sheep, of the same weight, were fed in the open
field, without shelter of any kind. Each set was fed with turnips _ad
libitum_. The result was, that those without shelter increased in weight
1 lb. per week for each sheep, whilst those under shelter, although they
consumed less food, increased respectively 3 lbs. per week.

As a general rule, the latter part of October, or early in November, is
the time for the removal of live stock from the pastures to the shelter
of the farmstead. In England and Scotland the transference is seldom
delayed after these dates; but in Ireland it is no uncommon thing to see
the animals grazing very much later in the year--a circumstance which
the lateness and mildness of our climate account for. But whatever the
date may be, the importance of such shelter is universally recognised,
even by those who most neglect it and are least acquainted with the
principles upon which its necessity depends. The more important of these
principles have already been explained, but they may be here summarised
as follows:--

1. A certain amount of warmth is an indispensable condition for the
maintenance of the life of animals.

2. The internal heat of the bodies of animals is supplied by the
chemical combination which takes place between the oxygen of the
atmospheric air which they inspire and certain of the constituents
(carbon and hydrogen) of the food which they consume, or, to speak more
accurately, of the tissues of their bodies, which are formed out of
their food. It is very much in the same way in which our houses are
heated by the burning of coal, turf, or wood in their fire-places, since
the heat derived in the latter case is obtained from a similar source as
in the former one--namely, by the union of the oxygen of the air with
the carbon and hydrogen of the fuel. The only real difference between
the two kinds of combustion is, that in respiration the process is
conducted with an extreme degree of slowness, whilst in the ordinary
fire the combinations take place rapidly, and the heat being evolved
in a much shorter time is proportionately the more intense.

3. The temperature of the external parts of the animal body varies with
the nature and quantity of the food supplied to it, and also depends
upon the state of the weather and the character of the protection
afforded to it.

The colder the air, the greater will be the quantity of food required,
and the more complete the shelter. In other words, a diminution of
temperature, no matter how caused, will necessitate an increased amount
of food and more perfect shelter, in order to maintain at the proper
degree of heat the fluids of the body. It is only the external parts of
the body that become cold: so long as the animal is in health its blood
always maintains the same degree of temperature; but in cold weather the
blood is subjected to a greater cooling power than it is in warm
weather, and this cooling power it can only resist by taxing more
extensively the heat-producing resources of the body.

4. Exposure to wet, even in warm weather, will tend to reduce the
temperature of the body, since the conversion of water into vapor can
only be effected at the expense of heat, which heat must be in great
part extracted from the body of the animal itself.

5. No possible increase of food, however nutritious it may be, can
suffice to keep up the due warmth and healthy condition of the animal
frame in winter, if shelter from cold and rain be not simultaneously
effected. On the contrary, an animal well protected from the winter
blasts will require much less food than if it were placed in an exposed
position. The reason of this is, that the amount of food which an animal
exposed to great cold consumes to maintain the temperature of its body
would, under opposite conditions, be stored up in the form of permanent
"increase"--beef or mutton for the butcher, in fact.

The fat-forming constituents of the food of stock are in no case
converted into permanent fat, except when they exceed in quantity the
amount required to keep up the internal heat of the animal; but when
this is constantly reduced by exposure to a wintry temperature, the
food becomes insufficient for even that purpose, no matter how much
aliment is given. What, then, must not be the condition of the
unfortunate animals whose fate it is to be the property of a farmer
who neither shelters them from the weather nor provides them with a
sufficient quantity of nourishing food!

_Milch Cows._--When dairy-farming is conducted on pure pastures, the
cows are altogether dependent upon the grasses; and in winter, the
animals suffer much from scarcity of food. This is the very worst system
of cow-keeping, but it is prevalent amongst many small farmers in
Ireland, and is to be met with even in England and Scotland. I am
strongly of opinion that it would be far more economical to keep cows
(and other cattle) altogether in the house, and feed them with cut
grass, than to allow them to remain out altogether in the field. There
are several disadvantages resulting from the depasturing of cows. In the
warm weather, the animals are greatly annoyed by the attacks of flies:
there is a considerable waste of muscle, caused by the movements of
the animals whilst in search of their food; and the excrements of the
animals and their footmarks injure a large portion of the grass. It may
be somewhat troublesome and expensive to cut the grass, and convey it
from the field to the house; but the labor and the cost will be more
than repaid by the greatly-increased yield of food. A grass-field,
mowed, will produce from 20 to 30 per cent. more food than it would if
it were trampled upon and soiled by cattle. Exercise for an hour or two
in the cool of the evening, or early in the morning (during the hot
weather), will be quite sufficient to keep the animals in health. This
may be taken in a field, better in a paddock, best of all in a roomy
yard. When cattle are supplied with cut grass, or clover, care should
be taken not to give it to them when very wet, for otherwise there is
danger of the excessively moist herbage producing the _hoove_. Neither
should large quantities of the green food be given to them--the supply
should be "little and often." Should the food be too succulent, the
addition of a little straw will correct its laxative effects. When
the stock is about passing from the winter keep to summer food, the
transition should be gradual; a well-made compound of straw or hay with
grass (natural or artificial) is much relished by cows. A supply of
good water is absolutely necessary; but sufficient attention to this
important point is seldom given. Cooked food is well adapted for milch
cows. Mangels, kohl-rabi, and cabbages are each of them better food than
turnips, as the latter is apt to impart a disagreeable flavour to the
butter. Three feeds in the day is a sufficient number for cows. The
first meal should be early in the morning, and may consist of roots,
mixed with straw or hay

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