Food fur Agricultural Stock. 



203 



fifth the cost of the specially-made artificial foods. Such foods 

 cannot therefore be relied upon as staple articles. The virtues 

 which they really do possess over and above those which could 

 be secured at one-fourth to one-fifth the price are confined, 

 therefore, to the action on the health and digestion of the ani- 

 mals of the small amount of stimulating and carminative seeds 

 which they contain. In fact, so far, they are sauce or medicine, 

 rather than food. As such they are likely rather to increase 

 than to diminish the appetite for further nutriment. Still it is 

 quite possible that, if judiciously compounded, they may be of 

 service in keeping horses in a more healthy state of body, or in 

 aiding the digestive powers of weakly animals which do not 

 readily consume and thrive upon the ordinary foods. It should, 

 however, be clearly understood by the farmer, that these manu- 

 factured foods cannot do away with the necessity for a given 

 amount of digestible and assimilable constituents in the col- 

 laterally-consumed ordinary food. There is, as yet, no exact evi- 

 dence to show that they can, even in their office of condiments 

 or medicines, enable the animals profitably to appropriate a 

 larger proportion than they otherwise would, of the constituents 

 of the other food they consume. That is to say, there is no 

 proof afforded, that with their use there is either a larger amount 

 of increase obtained for a given amount of food constituents 

 consumed, or that a smaller amount of the food constituents 

 passes off unused and effete in the faeces. 



Below are given the results of the practical trial of the food, 

 the proximate analysis of which has been already recorded. The 

 plan of the experiment was as follows : 6 pigs were selected and 

 divided into two lots of 3 each, the collective weights of the 

 respective lots differing from one another by only 2 lbs. To lot 

 No. 1 a mixture was given, composed of 9 parts barley-meal and 

 1 part bran. To lot No. 2 the same mixture of barley-meal and 

 bran was given, with the addition of 2 parts of the manufactured 

 food to every 10 parts of the barley and bran mixture. The 

 food was in each case stirred up with hot water, and both lots 

 were allowed as much of their respective foods as they chose to eat. 

 The results of this comparative experiment were as follows : — 



Description of Food. 



Dnration] 

 Number i of 



nk I ^S", weight. Weight. 



I (Days). I I 



R^i^l^^'^S'f 'increase. 



Total 

 Food 

 con- 

 sumed. 



Food 

 consumed 

 to produce 



100 of 

 I Increase. 



Lot 1. Nine parts Barley-meal, \ 

 one part Bran . . . j 



Lot 2. Nine parts Bavley-meal.j 

 one part Bran, two parts > 

 manufactured food . . ) 



lbs. 

 496 



lbs. 

 139 



lbs. 

 5i7 



393 

 400 



