AS FOOD FOR CATTLE AND SHEEP. 299' 



matters 0-94 per cent., heat-producing 13"30 per cent., woody 

 fibre lO'll per cent., and mineral ash 1*59 per cent. Thus,, 

 when the three nourishing constituents are summed up they 

 show 18*30 per cent, of the whole, as compared with only from 

 5 to 5^ per cent, in the case of turnips. Consequently, there is 

 exactly three-and-a-half times as much nourishing matter in 

 any given quantity of the above variety of grass as there is in 

 the same weight of swedes. 



Now, in looking to the composition of grass as affording a 

 criterion by which to judge of the expediency of using turnips 

 as the sole or main article of food for cattle and sheep, we must 

 not restrict ourselves to a comparison of the proportion of nour- 

 ishing food in each or of the jjercentage of moisture in each, \mt 

 we must ascertain how much water has to be partaken of in the 

 case of each variety of food in order to secure a given weight of 

 dry solid food. If any animal is to make satisfactory progress 

 towards maturity, and, indeed, even if it is to maintain itself in 

 life, it nmst consume a certain weight of beat-producing and 

 flesh-forming food. Let us assume that a given animal requires 

 daily for this purpose 8 11)S. of such solid food. To obtain this, 

 in the form of grass, it has to imbibe onlv 31 lbs. of water: 

 whereas, to secure it with turnips as its sole food, it has to take 

 into its stomach no less than 135 lbs. of tliat cold liquid. 

 Again, when a sheep eats 20 lbs. of turnips, 18 11 )s. of its food is 

 moisture and only 1 lb. nourishing food ; but to get the same 

 amount of solid nourishment in grass, it has only to imbibe 

 4 lbs. of water. But if this holds good with swedes, whose 

 analysis shows 10 per cent, of solid matter in their composition, 

 what are we to say of the wide area of roots grown with fast 

 manures on inferior land, which contain not more than 7 or 8 

 per cent, of dry substance ^ It is well known that when there 

 is a lengthened track of mild moist weather, there springs up^ 

 even on pasture land where the soil is naturally good, a soft 

 watery herbage which lack's in a large measure the rich fat- 

 tening qualities which grass on the same field is possessed of in 

 ordinary warm dry weather. This illustrates how the presence 

 of an excessive quantity of moisture deteriorates the feeding 

 pro])erties of what is otherwise good and nourishing. AVheu the 

 matter is closely looked at in this light, no one need be sur- 

 piised that so many crops of tiirni])s have enough to do to kee}> 

 animals in life and fail to add to tht'ir ilesh and fat. Dean 

 liamsay tells about a minister's man who ilattered himself that 

 if he could not, as the result of his long association witli his 

 master, preach a sermon, lie coidd at least draw an inference. 

 " And what inf(*rence," he was asked, " would you draw from 

 this text: — * A wild ass snulleth up the wind at her pleasure ?'" 

 " I wad draw this inference," was John's quaint reply, "he wad 



