380 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



we cau utilize iu the cow is the milk-product and the adipose 

 tissue resulting from the fattening process. The warmth 

 which we experience in our barns in winter is, to a consid- 

 erable extent, wasted heat-energy : it is the surplus heat gen- 

 erated by the animals, and which is radiated into space 

 through the respiratory and excretory organs. We diminish 

 this radiation of heat when we give a bucket of cold water to 

 each animal, as is often done in the morning ; and the dim- 

 inution of warmth iu a barn where there are a large number 

 of animals is so great that the thermometer is sensibly 

 affected. The same results are reached when water is thrown 

 upon a hot-bed of coals. It requires the same expenditure 

 of heat to raise one hundred gallons of ice-cold water to the 

 temperature of 90° F. in the organisms of a herd of cows, 

 that is required to raise the same to like temperature by the 

 fires in a farmer's kitchen. As wood and coal are cheaper 

 products than hay and grain, it follows that it is a matter of 

 economy to warm the water supplied to milch cows in the 

 winter-season. I but give voice to the experiences of ob- 

 serving farmers, when I assert that three gallons of water at 

 the freezing temperature, given to a cow in winter twice a 

 day, will cut short the milk-product more than six per cent, 

 in twenty-four hours. The chemical energy requisite to pro- 

 duce milk cannot be diverted to heating water iu the system 

 of the cow without serious loss. 



At this point several interesting inquiries arise. Since it 

 is seen that all forms of energy possible upon our earth re- 

 sult from the sun's rays, what maintains this tremendous fur- 

 nace — the sun ? What is the fuel ? How long has it blazed as 

 now, and when will it be extinguished ? These are questions 

 which cannot be answered with any satisfactory certainty. 

 There are reliable data, however, which enable us to know, 

 with a great degree of positiveness, that the farmers of 

 two thousand years ago received as much heat from the 

 sun as we do now, and that their vines and cereal crops 

 flourished in great luxuriance. The amount of heat received 

 from the sun has not materially changed iu the lapse of two 

 thousand years. Geological f^icts show that for millions of 

 years there have been alternations of heat and cold of great 



