REARING AND FEEDING FARM STOCK. Jg5 



board, and hardly made any fuss about this addition to his usual 

 stock. On this enormous farm, and raising corn to the extent 

 which you may judge it was raised from the fact just stated with 

 regard to the day's work of plowing, you will be surprised to 

 learn that it takes a hundred bushels of corn to keep an animal 

 from the day the grass ceases to grow in the fall until it begins to 

 grow again in the spring, and that the animal has not gained one 

 single pound. I do not mean to be understood that each animal 

 actually eats six thousand pounds of corn, but a hundred bushels 

 were put before each animal, and either eaten or wasted. There 

 was no such an institution as a barn on that farm, and the animals 

 were exposed to all the snows, and winds, and rains of heaven ; 

 and the consequence was, that the corn was wasted in furnishing 

 energy for the mechanical labor of grinding up the corn and in 

 supptying the heat that was necessary to keep them alive. Here 

 is a practical exemplification of the amount of food that is re- 

 quired in order to obtain the animal heat which is necessary under 

 such conditions. 



When your rooms are cold, and the winds of winter are howling 

 around, your method of preserving warmth is to put wood into 

 the stove, where it inflames and burns up, and the l-esult is, that 

 heat is poured out and the room is kept warm. Stated chemical- 

 ly, in this process, the oxygen of the air combines with the carbon 

 of the wood, and in the act of combination, heat is given out. 

 Now, the same chemical statement which gives the cause of the 

 heat which comes from your stove to warm your rooms, may with 

 equal accuracy explain the source of animal heat. The animal 

 eats a certain amount of food containing carbon, and that carbon 

 combines with oxygen, and gives out heat which is diffused 

 through the system, what we call animal heat. The oxidation of 

 the carbon in the form of corn is precisely and identically the same 

 with the combination of carbon in the form of wood in the stove, 

 except that the latter is more rapid and accompanied with flame. 

 Inasmuch as it is necessary for you to burn more wood in your 

 stove if you leave the window open, so it is necessary, in order to 

 supply the requisite amount of heat for an animal, that he should 

 consume a greater amount of corn, if he is left exposed, in order 

 to furnish the carbon which is necessary to supply animal heat to 

 preserve life. For the heat of the body must be maintained at a 

 nearly uniform temperature if you wish to preserve your life. It 

 requires a variation of only a few degrees, (I think only eight,) 



