CHEMISTRY OF THE FEEDING OP ANIMALS. 199 



the Chairman, that the great feature of Mr. Lawes' career was the 

 remarkable accuracy in all his experiments. There was no doubt 

 in tlie*world as to the accuracy of his facts, nor was there any 

 doubt as to the accuracy of his conclusions. With regard to the 

 proportion of fat and flesh-forming substances in various kinds of 

 food, he might observe that they had recently heard of Monte 

 Video beef, which on analysis was only found to possess 5 per 

 cent, of fiit ; the rest was fibre and albumen, the nutritive proper- 

 ties of which were doubtful. They had all been inclined to be- 

 lieve that the food of the people of this country was wanting 

 in flesh-forming materials ; that there was too much starch 

 in the food of the Irish peasantry. Now, Mr. Lawes had clear- 

 ly proved by several investigations that in consuming vege- 

 table food, such as bread, they used a larger pi'oportion of nitro- 

 genous matter than if they consumed all flesh-food. They found 

 no fat at all in the potato ; but when the poor get a chance of 

 anything else they selected fat bacon, dripping, or some thing 

 that had fat in it, and did not go to stingy beef like that of Monte 

 Video. Having entered somewhat into the details of the question, 

 Dr. Cameron concluded by expressing his satisfaction at the paper 

 which they had heard read. 



Mr. Baldwin of Glasnevin, said that, with the view of promoting 

 discussion and eliciting more information from Mr. Lav/es, he 

 wished to draw attention to a few matters which struck him as 

 Mr. Lawes was explaining his elaborate tables. In one of these 

 tables Mr. Lawes appeared to him to assume that the instinct of 

 animals may be made the basis on \fhich to judge of the kinds and 

 quantities of plastic constituents which they require. Is this 

 notion a mere hypothesis, or a deduction from actual experi- 

 ments ? In another table we are presented with facts which, if 

 quite reliable, appear to me well calculated to enable us to judge 

 of the relative profitableness of fattening cattle, sheep, and pigs. 

 Taking the cattle, and assuming that 65 per cent, of the increased 

 live weight was marketable beef, and valuing this at the price at 

 which I saw beef sold this morning in the Dublin cattle market, 

 and allowing (what Mr. Lawes calculated in another paper of his) 

 that the value of the manure from a ton of turnips was worth 4s., 

 and from a ton of cake upwards of £4, it appears to me this table 

 assigns aliigh feeding value to turnips. I should like to have the 

 opinion of some of the experienced agriculturists now present on 

 this point, as well as on the facts which this table presented as to 



