298 ox THE ECONOMICAL USE OF TURNIPS 



we submit, is a powerful argument in favour of the opinion we- 

 have already advanced, that live stock should, as nearly as 

 possible, get just as many turnips as will supply their desire for 

 and their need of water. 



This argument, drawn from a consideration of the percentage 

 of water in the bodies of animals and from their instinct, may be 

 supported by an examination of the composition of grass, which 

 is the natural food of graminivorous animals. This vegetable 

 may be regarded as embodying in something like due proportions 

 the proper constituent elements of the food of the beasts which 

 subsist upon it. What, then, is the percentage of water in- 

 ordinary grass in its natural fresh condition? One chemist gives 

 the mean percentage of that liquid in eighteen species of fresh 

 grass plants as 68, while another chemist specifies 70 as the mean 

 percentage in no fewer than twenty-one species. If we take 

 the larger of these estimates as the percentage of water in a 

 fairly representative specimen of fresh grass, there remains 30 

 per cent, of solid dry matter. There is thus 70 per cent, of 

 water in grass, the natural food of cattle and sheep, as compared 

 with 90 per cent, in swedes, which are an artificially produced 

 food, being a difference of 20 per cent. Consequently, when a 

 bullock consumes Ih cvvt. of turnips it swallows 150 lbs. of 

 w^ater ; whereas, in eating the same w^eight of fresh grass, it 

 partakes of only 117 lbs., or about 3 gallons less. 



However, the difference in the relative composition of turnips 

 and grass is much more strikingly apparent when we compare 

 the quantity of dry solid matter which each contains. Since 

 turnips have 90 per cent, and grass 70 per cent, of water, it 

 follows that the former has only 10 per cent, of solid matter as 

 compared with 30 per cent, possessed by the latter. Conse- 

 quently, in any given weight of each, there is contained three 

 times the quantity of dry ingredients in the grass that there 

 is in the bulbs. Thus, when a bullock consumes 1-^ cwt. of 

 swedes it secures therein less than 17 lbs. of dry food; whereas, 

 in the same weight of average green grass, it obtains no less than 

 50 lbs. of such solid matter. Again, when a sheep eats 20 lbs. 

 of turnips it gets only 2 lbs. of solid food, as compared with 6 

 lbs. which it w^ould derive from a similar weight of ordinary 

 pasture grass. If a closer examination is made of tlie different 

 ingredients in the dry matter of turnips and grass respectively, 

 our position will be still further illustrated and supported. We 

 have seen that in 100 lbs. of the former vegetable only from 5 

 lbs. to 5^ lbs. are nourishing, the remainder being woody fibre 

 and mineral ash. Cocksfoot may be taken as a representative 

 grass, seeing Mr Way found the percentage of water in it to be 

 about an average, viz. 70. The remaining 30 per cent, he 

 accounted for as follows : — flesh-forming 4*UG per cent., fatty 



