280 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



are the age, the size and the ripeness. From the experiments we 

 have already tried at the college, I have no doubt age has a very 

 great influence upon the result. The young animal seems to have 

 an organization capable of deriving more nutritive material from 

 the same feed, so that it gives a larger return for feed, other 

 things being equal, than when it gets older. The ripeness of the 

 animal has much to do with it. When the animal is in a .moderate 

 condition, it will receive inore nutrition from the food consumed 

 than after it is excessively fat. The size of the animal perhaps 

 has something to do with it. I am inclined to think it has, and 

 you see we have a difficult problem to deal with, to determine how 

 much of this variation is owing to difference in age, how much to 

 difference in size of the animals, and how much to this difference 

 in ripeness. By ripeness I mean the condition of the animal, as 

 regards fat. The treatment of animals will have very much to do 

 with the results. Animals that are carefully treated, and fed reg- 

 ularly, will give a larger return for food consumed, other things 

 being equal, than those that are treated harshly, and kept in con- 

 stant tumult from outside annoyances and interferences. The 

 mental condition of the animal has undoubtedly very much to do 

 with the progress it makes in feeding. We found when we were 

 feeding sheep in the experimental pens in the sheep barns — this 

 building being occupied by other sheep — they did not make as 

 much progress as when fed by themselves, and they would fall 

 away at once as soon as there was an unusual disturbance among 

 the sheep in the outside pens of the same building. 



There is another matter that should be taken into consideration ; 

 that is, the varying weights of animals, without apparent cause. 

 If you weigh animals, at long intervals, you, will undoubtedly iiud 

 they are making very satisfactory progress from one weighing to 

 another ; but if you weigh them at short intervals, you will find 

 they lose during one period, and gain the next. If you weigh 

 them every day, you will find one day a loss, and the next day a 

 gain, or perhaps two or three days a gain, and then a great loss. 

 The progress made by the animal is an undulating line, and net a 

 uniformly ascending line. 



I do not know that I can give any satisfactory explanation of 

 this variation in weights of animals, but I presume it is owing to 

 a difference in the action of some of the secretory organs. It is 

 probable their fluctuation in weight was owing to loss of water 

 in the animal rather than to a loss of dry substance, because 



