27 



the butcher the economy of the feeding process ^vill be the greater, the 

 less the amount of food expended by respiration, in the production of a 

 given amount of increase; and it is equally obvious that one ready and 

 efficient means of lesserjing the proportion of waste or expenditure to 

 the increase of the products, is to lessen, as far as possible, the time 

 taken to produce it. In otker words, to fatten as quickly as possible. 

 Thus, from experiments made by him, he assures us that a pig weighing 

 100 pounds will, if supplied with as much barley meal as he can eat, 

 consume 500 pounds of it, and double his weight — that is, increase 

 from 100 pounds to 200 pounds — in seventeen weeks. He then points out 

 that if instead of allowing the pig to have as much barley meal as he 

 will eat, the 500 pounds of meal had been made to last many more 

 weeks, the result would have been that the animal would have appro- 

 priated a corresponding!}' larger proportion of the food for the purposes 

 of respiration and perspiratiou, and a correspondingly less proportion 

 in the production of increase. In other words, if the 500 pounds of bar- 

 ley meal were distributed over a longer period of time, it would give 

 less increase in live weight, and a larger ])roportion of it would be em- 

 ployed in the mere maintenance of tlie life of the animal. Indeed, if 

 the period of consumption of the 500 pounds of meal be sufficiently 

 extended, the result will be that no increase whatever will be produced, 

 and tliat the whole of the food, excei)ting the portion obtained as 

 manure, will be expended in sustaining the animal's existence. 



REARING GRAPE VINES IN POTS. 



A horticulturist in Stuttgardt has devised an ingenious method of 

 rearing grape vines in pots so as to obtain grapes with very little trouble 

 in a room or other sheltered place. For this purpose a vigorous healthy 

 cutting of the late growth of the wood is taken, from three to five feet 

 in length, having at the upper end two fruit buds. The cutting is to 

 be entirely enveloped with moss, and bound with bast, but so as to 

 leave the extremity bearing the fruit buds uncovered. The cutting thus 

 prepared is to be inserted spirally into a sufficiently large flower-pot, 

 leaving the fruit buds projecting above the edge of the ])ot, which is 

 then to be filled with rich hot-bed earth well moistened, and placed in 

 the sun behind a window and kept uniformly' moist. The water applied 

 should never be cold, but rather lukewarm, so as to stimulate to the 

 utmost thedevelo})ment of the young roots. When the weather is such 

 that there is no danger from night frosts, the pot may be placed outside 

 the window or against a sunny wall, or even inserted in the ground in 

 order to secure a more uniform moisture and temperature. When the 

 two fruit buds have produced branches, having bunches of grapes 

 upon them, these shoots are to be trimmed so that two sound leaves re- 

 main over each grape shoot, in order to keep up the circulation of the 

 sap, since without this the grapes would not develop. A single leaf 

 would be sufficient, but two are better, for greater security. An occa- 

 sional watering with a liquid manure is advisable in order to stimulate 

 the growth of the plant, although this must be applied with care, since 

 an excess will do more harm than good. In one instance a grape shoot 

 treated in this way produced nine large bunches of fine grapes, although 

 such a number would be rather more than could conveniently be sup- 

 ported by the plant.. 



\ DESTROYING ANTS. 



A French agriculturist reports that after trying every method known 

 to him for the destruction of ants infesting some of his fruit trees, he 



