652 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



and pliysiologists of the liigliest order, including Boussingault, Liebig, 

 Bishop, and Voyd on tlie continent, and Lawes and Gilbert in this 

 country, farmers are largely indebted for elaborate and useful 

 researches. Certain principles have been distinctly established by 

 their joint labours, but a great deal remains to be done before we 

 can get a much deeper insight into the mystery of nutrition. We 

 iindoubtedly possess certain advantages over the generation which 

 immediately preceded us, and these enable us to select, with greater 

 certainty, the kind of food best adapted to particular cases, whether 

 working oxen, milch cows, or fattening stock. We have also learnt to 

 form a more correct estimate of the real money value of food. 



As the subject of animal nutrition is too wide for a single lecture, 

 I shall limit my remarks to the chemistry op purchased food, and 

 shall direct special attention to the fact that the money value of such 

 food is very materially influenced by the value of the food constituents 

 which pass through the animal in the form of solid and liquid excre- 

 ments. It is well known that the manurial properties of different 

 kinds of food vary exceedingly. Thus the dung of animals fed upon 

 oil-cake, or uj)on peas, lentils, and leguminous seeds in general, is 

 very much more fertilising than that of straw-fed beasts. Hence it 

 may be useful for us to inquire into the relative manurial values of the 

 principal kinds of purchased food. 



The following list probably includes all or nearly all the articles 

 at the present time brought into the market and em^^loyed by the 

 British farmer as auxiliary feeding materials : linseed, linseed-cake of 

 various kinds, earthnut-cake (commonly called nut-cake), rape-cake, 

 cotton-cake (decorticated and undecorticated). These cakes form, so 

 to speak, the first class purchased food. 



Secondly, we have beans, peas, lentils, and fenugreek. These legu- 

 minous seeds form a second class of purchased food. 



In the third class I arrange together the farinaceous seeds — 

 Indian corn, wheat, barley, oats; and, by way of appendix, I add 

 malt, malt-dust, bran, and pollard. 



Then, in a fourth class, I put together the following materials, 

 which are now and then in the market, and are useful auxiliary foods : 

 palm-nut meal, locust-beans, brewers' grains (which may be had at a 

 moderate price by farmers who are well situated for obtaining them), 

 and molasses. 



In every kind of food we find the following classes of food-con- 

 stituents ; nitrogenous, or flesh-forming substances ; and fat-j)roducing 

 substances, which may be conveniently divided into two groups, in 

 their order of merit : (1) ready made fat ; and (2) sugary or starchy 

 food ; ready made fat being much more valuable than either sugar or 

 starch. Indeed, I shall not be far wrong in saying that one part, in 

 weight, of fat or oil is as valuable as a feeding material as two-and-a-half 

 parts of sugar or starch, or any analogous compounds. Among starchy 

 compoimds I include the vegetable jelly pectine, and pectinous sub- 

 stances ; and not far removed from starch and more digestible pectinous 

 matters is the young cellular fibre, which is digestible to a consider- 

 able extent, and ought to be taken into account in estimating the 



