3(38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



out of the grinding like oat-husks from the mill-stoues. A great 

 amount of the vital force of the animal has been expended in sift- 

 ing out the digestible part, but a greater amount in the exti^a labor 

 of expelling that which is indigestible. These "extras" are costly 

 things, as many a man learns to his discomfiture, when he comes 

 to " settle his bills." In the. tie-up it is represented by a loss of 

 flesh and weight. For an animal may work off its body in the labor 

 of filling its belly. Thousands of animals by this extra labor, are 

 made to " show their ribs " every winter. 



Observations show that potatoes, turnips and other roots, when 

 fed in a raw state, pass through the intestines unaffected as when 

 swallowed. The unbroken grains of starch found in the excre- 

 ments are evidences of this. Every thoughtful farmer knows that 

 the larger proportion of nutriment enters the stomach in the form 

 of starch, which, by mechanical and chemical action, is converted 

 into sugar, &c., and all that remains unchanged is cast from the 

 system as waste. Uncooked starch taken into the human stomach 

 affords not a particle for nourishment. 



Kecent experiments prove that the stomach of graminivorous 

 animals can fit for use but a part of the grains of starch, if con- 

 sumed raw. As starch constitutes more than nine-tenths of all the 

 carbonaceous principles of our grains and leguminous seeds, and 

 is the most important, and often the only food of two-thirds of all 

 mankind, the economy in utilizing this waste will be self-evident. 



By steaming hay, the woody fibre otherwise lost, is, together 

 with the whole bulk, converted into a soft and succulent condition, 

 rendering the whole mass more easily acted upon by the gastric 

 juice, and enabling the animal to appropriate its nutriment. Be- 

 sides it restores the hay, by the infusion of water, to its normal 

 condition of nutritious grass. By steaming, straw, cornstalks, 

 pea and bean vines, with other coarse herbage, may be converted 

 into valuable fodder. 



Before the invention of clocks and watches, the flow of water 

 through orifices was employed to measure time. These water 

 clocks were often used by ancient orators, to show them when the 

 time allotted for speaking had expired. The sinking water of our 

 "Cleps-ydra" warns me that my time has nearly run out, and that 

 but briefly can I consider my second proposition of water as an 

 agent of poiver. 



The great and pressing want of the agriculture of Maine, is a 

 HOME MARKET, whcrc a surplus may find an accessible demand with- 



