432 On the Feeding of Stock. 



and albumen, ready formed. Vegetable fibrine and animal fibrine, vege- 

 table albumen and animal albumen, hardly differ even in form. " If 

 these principles be wanting in the food, the nutrition of the animal is 

 arrested; and when they are present, the graminivorous animal ob- 

 tains in its food the very same principles on the presence of which the 

 nutrition of carnivora entirely depends." 



To apply these discoveries to our present mode of feeding sheep on 

 turnips. According to Dr. Daubeny's table,* turnips contain iu about 

 50 tons, or 100,000 lbs. weight, 



92,762 lbs. water and carbon. 

 5,558 fixed ingredients. 

 1,680 azote. 



100,000 lbs. 

 Now 25 tons, being an average weight for 1 acre of land, will only 

 contain 840 lbs. of nitrogen; hence we may see the necessity of adding 

 grain, as practised by Messrs. Childers and Thompson. The former 

 states that sheep fed with the addition of ^ pint of barley per sheep per 

 day, ^ lb. of linseed-cake, a little hay, and with a constant supply of 

 salt, become ready for the butcher in ten iveeks^ and gain of flesh and 

 tallow 33 lbs. to 40 lbs. per head (one sheep gained 55 lbs. in twelve weeks), 

 and that, with artificial food, 30 tons of turnips will feed 60 sheep, f 

 while on the usual plan of feeding on turnips alone out of doors, the 

 average of the country is that 20 tons of turnips will feed in sixteen 

 iveeks 10 sheep, with a gain of only 20 lbs. of flesh and tallow. The bar- 

 ley and cake cost 6d. to 10c/. per week for each sheep, and the turnips 

 iDith this addition thus go eight times as far, or produce eight times the 

 amount of flesh and tallow. I The practice of Belgium is also in 

 strict conformity with the principles here laid down by Professor Liebig, 

 for not only are all their animals kept up and fed in houses, but the 

 mixture called brassi7i consists of the flour of nitrogenous grain mixed 

 together with roots. At all events, the 7iecessily of war77ith to animals 

 during the time of feeding, and the use of those vegetables which contain 

 nitrogen, must ever remain as fixed principles of economy in agriculture, 

 and without principles, says Cullen, deduced from analytical reasoning, 

 experience is an useless and blind guide.§ 



* See the following paper. 



f Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. i., part iv., p. 409. 



I The turnips alone go four times as far, for 30 tons feed 60 sheep, while on the usual 

 plan of feeding they would only feed 15 sheep; but the same weight of turnips with 

 artificial food produces also very nearly double the amount of flesh and tallow, and 

 therefore goes eight times as far. 



§ Moveable sheds are now used for keeping sheep warm during feeding on turnips, so 

 that there shall be no loss to the land from the treading of these animals ; or, what is 

 still preferable, one-third to one-half of the turnips may be drawn oft', and by giving oil- 

 cake or barley to the sheep which consume the other half on tlie land, as good barley 

 and seeds may be obtained as if all the turnips had been eaten on the land. 



