FISH FODDER FOR CATTLE. 107 



we know that it thrives well enough when fed in great measure 

 upon vegetable food. The young of all mammals are for a con- 

 siderable period of their early life fed exclusively upon milk, 

 which is a purely animal diet, and a calf or a lamb has only 

 gradually to become accustomed to vegetable food. Day by 

 day the proportion of grass which they eat goes on increasing, 

 and their digestive apparatus undergoes a gradual change, and 

 develops in accordance with the altered character of the food 

 which they consume, until, in the space of a few months, they 

 have acquired the mature stomach of a ruminant; but long 

 after that period they may still, if permitted, drain the udder 

 of the dam, and thrive in an extraordinary manner on their 

 mixed animal and vegetable diet. Long after they have been 

 weaned their taste for animal food does not desert them, and 

 they only require to have it presented to them in a palatable 

 form in order to exhibit their liking for it. At fishing ports in 

 this country, where it frequently happens that a superabundance 

 of herrings occurs, and a proper market cannot be got for them, 

 farmers in the neighbourhood make use of them as manure by 

 spreading them on the land, and it is a matter of common 

 observation that cattle having access to these are very fond of 

 them. 



At the great fish-curing stations on the Norwegian coast the 

 dried heads of cod fish have for a great many years been utilised 

 by the farmers in the neighbourhood as a cattle fodder. The 

 usual practice in these districts is to boil down the fish heads 

 into a kind of soup, which is then mixed with straw, chaff, or 

 other rough fodder. A very acceptable and nutritious food is 

 produced in that way, and on account of the great abundance 

 of this refuse material, the Norwegian peasantry are able to 

 bring their cattle easily through the long winter in good con- 

 dition, to greatly increase the number of their stock, and to 

 correspondingly raise the fertility of their land. 



This practice has prevailed in Norway for ages, but it does 

 not seem to have attracted the attention of farmers in other 

 parts of Europe less favourably situated for obtaining a cheap 

 kind of animal food until a few years ago ; and although the 

 cod fisheries of Norway have much increased of late, and the 

 means of establishing an export trade from the fishing stations 

 should present no great difficulty, yet it cannot be said that an 

 export trade in fish fodder has been more than originated in 

 that country. 



During the last fifteen years, however, an industry of a 

 similar kind has arisen in a different quarter of the globe. In 

 South America, where enormous numbers of cattle are annually 

 slaughtered for the puqDOse of making Liebig's extract of beef, 

 the residue derived from that manufacture, consisting of the 



