gg BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The different classes of material which go to work the different 

 purposes in the animal economy are classified under different names. 

 We will refer to two or three of those names, because it is impos- 

 sible to present this intelligently in any other way. Besides, they 

 are terms which you are running across everj^ da}', and if you are 

 not, as many of you I know are, familiar with them now, the soon- 

 er you make yourself so the more intelligently you can read, and 

 the better farmer you will become. 



We have, first, the nitrogenous materials. Tiiis class of nutri- 

 tive elements is denominated albuminoids. They contain more or 

 less nitrogen. They are found in all plants, but in varying quanti- 

 ties ; some plants contain but little of this nitrogenous material, 

 while other plants contain large percentages of it. An animal at work 

 for a certain purpose would require a certain amountof nitrogenous ma- 

 terial ; kept for a different purpose it would require a less or a greater 

 proportion of the nitrogenous material corresponding with the purpose 

 for which it was kept. Knowing the requirements of the animal, 

 and knowing the material of the fodder, you can conform to the re- 

 quirements of the animal, and thus render your feeding operations 

 economical in the highest degree. 



The office of these albuminoid compounds is to supply animal 

 growth ; it supplies the animal with the material out of which 

 is constructed the muscular system, that is, what we term the lean 

 meat of the animal. The solids of milk — the cream, largely, and 

 the caseine wholly — are formed from these albuminoid compounds. 

 Here is this fact connected with the matter so far as any experi- 

 mental work has been able to discover, and much of it has been 

 carried on at the different experimental feeding stations, it has 

 shown that an animal cannot supply itself with the material to build 

 up its muscular system out of non-nitrogenous food : that is, it can- 

 not take a non-nitrogenous material and transform it into muscle, 

 or into cream or caseine in milk ; it is impossible to do it. Conse- 

 quently, if you are growing a young animal, a steer, a heifer or a 

 colt, you see what becomes necessary at once ; you must supply to 

 that young animal a food rich in nitrogenous material, rich in al- 

 buminoids, because from the albuminoids alone can it build up its 

 muscular system. And the same with milk ; if you would make a 

 rich milk you must feed to the cow a food rich in albuminoids. It 

 is impossible for the cow to make rich milk out of material lacking 

 in albuminoids. 



