226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



poor cow than with the good cow. I have frequently noticed, 

 in feeding-experiments with cows, that an increase of food is 

 not always accompanied with a similar increase of milk-flow, 

 With steers, the following illustration will show the impor- 

 tance of the good steer. Four two-year-old steers were fed 

 in two lots. Lot 1, when meal was added to its former ha}'-- 

 ration, ate four hundred and forty-six pounds, and three hun- 

 dred and thirty pounds less of hay than when meal was not 

 fed. Lot 2 ate five hundred pounds meal ; and this took 

 the place of five hundred and eighty pounds of hay. The 

 one used the meal, in part, as excess food ; while the other lot 

 used it to slightly more than replace the hay. The first lot 

 gained very much more than the second. But from this 

 partial digression I will return to the amount of food eaten 

 by animals of differing ages, and briefly notice a most impor- 

 tant law of animal development. 



The older and larger an animal grows, the more food is 

 required for a pound of growth. That young beef or pork 

 is cheap beef or pork is receiving recognition, but not to the 

 extent that its importance warrants. Possessing a less vig- 

 orous appetite, and perhaps digestion and assimilation not so 

 active, and less surface for radiation of heat in proportion to 

 weight, the steer and pig approaching maturity are now 

 understood to make better use of a pound of food than 

 younger beasts. Those who observe that young animals eat 

 more than old ones in proportion to weight are correct; but 

 it by no means follows that a proposition like the following 

 is true, — a proposition that many still stoutly maintain : 

 " My pigs are great eaters, and I know that my shotes don't 

 eat much more, and are more profitable to feed." Such an 

 error is destructive of all chance to feed economically either 

 steers or hogs in New England. The heavy consumption 

 of food by young animals is the very reason why they make 

 better use of food. While the truth I am presenting is some- 

 what trite with the well-informed, yet its importance and 

 non-observance in practice will warrant the presentation of 

 a few facts to enforce attention to a law as immutable as 

 those that control the movements of the planetary systems. 

 In three experiments, calves weighing four hundred and 

 twenty-five pounds ate three and three-tenths per cent of 

 live weight daily, and required ten pounds of hay to make 



