222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



nent varieties of Indian corn (maize), it may be interesting 

 to give, as a matter of introduction, a brief historical re- 

 view of the circumstances which have exerted a controlling 

 influence on the development of our present opinion con- 

 cerning the requirements of a rational and economical mode 

 of feeding our live-stock on the farm. 



The first successful attempts to inquire into the chemical 

 relations which exist between animal life and animal food 

 are duly conceded to the distinguished French chemist, La- 

 voisier, in 1780. He taught us the use of the balance in 

 chemical investigations, and thereby enabled us to secure 

 exact numerical values, fit for a comparative ^ study. He 

 began to inquire into the elementary composition of various 

 animal and vegetable substances ; and he is the first scien- 

 tific investigator who expressed the opinion, based upon 

 actual experimental observation, that one of the principal 

 causes of the decomposition of the constituents of the animal 

 organism consists in a slow process of combustion by the aid 

 and at the expense of the oxygen of the air. Sir Humphry 

 Davy and others, eminent in their devotion to chemistry and 

 physiology, soon followed him in this new field of research. 

 Within the succeeding fifty years, much valuable material 

 accumulated ; and many of our prominent farm-crops were 

 tested with reference to the relative amount of their proxi- 

 mate constituents, as fat, starch, cellular matter, mineral 

 constituents, &c. 



Several circumstances, however, conspired to render the 

 scientific work at that stage of inquiry of but little prac- 

 tical value to agriculturists. The great majority of farmers 

 did not yet realize the want of a more thorough study of 

 the food question in the interest of economy. To raise and 

 to feed stock for the meat-market and the dairy-industry 

 offered but little encouragement for investment. It still 

 remained to be shown more conclusively that raising and 

 feeding stock for both purposes might be carried on more 

 generally, as remunerative special branches of agricultural 

 industry, without having an extensive area of natural grass- 

 lands or pastures as an unfailing resource of fodder. The 

 increasing scarcity of fodder, which was more and more 

 felt from year to year as a natural result of the then 

 ruling three-field farm-management, with its limited variety 



