FOOD FOR STOCK, 



DESIGNED FOR SERVICE AND SLAUGHTER. 



The following paper was read by Mr. E. N. Horsford, at the 4th 

 Agricultural Meeting, at the old State Hall, Albany, Thursday even- 

 ing, April 4th. 



1. It is well known that working cattle and horses perform given 

 amounts of service with less exhaustion when fed upon grain, than 

 when fed upon hay or potatoes. 



The reason is this. All labor consists in repeated muscular con- 

 tractions. No muscular effort can be performed without the expen- 

 diture of muscular fibre. Muscular fibre is composed of several ele- 

 ments, one of which is nitrogen, and the substance is said to be a nitro- 

 genized compound. Nitrogenized compounds are supplied to the 

 wasting muscle from the blood. The blood is supplied with nutritive 

 matter from the stomach. The stomach receives its supplies from 

 the food which the animal eats. 



Grain, and hay, and carrots, turneps, potatoes, pumpkins, &c., dif- 

 fer from each other in chemical composition. The grains contain 

 more of the nitrogenized compounds, which are consumed by the ac- 

 tive muscle, than the potatoes and kindred agricultural products. 



These nitrogenized compounds have been found to be very nearly 

 the same things in the proportions of the elements which form them, 

 in grains and vegetable productions generally, that they are in the 

 stomach, the blood, and the muscle. In other words, the matter to 

 be expended in labor is formed in plants, and passes to the stomach, 

 and floats in the blood, and is secreted to form muscular fibre, with- 

 out any change. 



Some vegetable products contain more of this matter than others, 

 and are therefore more profitably employed as food for working cat- 

 tle and horses. 



The destruction of muscular fibre which takes place with each con- 

 traction, and the consequent fatigue, may be illustrated in this manner- 

 The muscle is a series of parallel fibres. These fibres are made of 

 little particles arranged side by side, or end to end, all of which 

 attract each other. Those immediately contiguous, attracting each 

 other more strongly than those at an interval asunder. If now some 

 of the particles be withdrawn, the contractions among the remaining 

 portions of the fibre, are less effective than they would be if the sec- 



