366 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



another stomach, where all its nutritive matter is extracted by the proper organs created for 

 that purpose. The horse and the hog, having no such organs to re-chew, do not derive so much 

 benefit from the ground cob as the animals above named. Hens derive more benefit from 

 corn and cob meal than they do from corn meal alone. lu fowls of this class there is an 

 apparatus analagous to animals that chew- the cud. ihrst, they take dry food into their 

 crops; here it becomes soaked as if it were in a warm vat; .from this it passes into the giz- 

 zard, which, furnished with gravel-stones, acts the part of. grinding fine, by aid of the strong 

 muscles of that organ, whatever passes into it. Here the particles of the cob meal, thoroughly 

 pulverized, and mingled with the gastric juices, become dissolved, and form nutrition for 

 the body. 



We do not mean to say that corn and cob meal is not good provender for horses and hogs, 

 but that they do not derive so much benefit from pound for pound, or bushel for bushel, as 

 oxen, cows, etc. do. Maine farmer. 



Period of Human Life. 



M. FLOURENS, the distinguished French physiologist, has recently published a book, in 

 which he announces that the normal period of the life of man is one hundred years. The 

 grounds on which he comes to this new philosophic conclusion may be briefly stated : It is, 

 we believe, a fact in natural history that the length of each animal's life is in exact propor- 

 tion to the period he is in growing. Buffon was aware of this truth, and his observa- 

 tions led him to conclude that the life in different species of animals is six or seven times as 

 long as the period of growth. M. Flourens, from his own observations and those of his pre- 

 decessors, is of opinion that it may be more safely taken at five times. When Buffon wrote, 

 the precise period at which animals leave off growing, or, to speak more correctly, the precise 

 circumstance which indicates that the growth has ceased, was not known. M. Flourens has 

 ascertained that period, and thereon lies his present theory. "It consists," says he, "in 

 the union of the bones to their epiphyses. As long as the bones are not united to their 

 epiphyses, the animal grows ; as soon as the bones are united to the epiphyses, the animal 

 ceases to grow." Now, in man the union of the bones and the epiphyses takes place, accord- 

 ing to M. Flourens, at the age of twenty ; and, consequently, he proclaims that the natural 

 duration of life is five times twenty years. " It is now fifteen years ago," he says, " since I 

 commenced researches into the physiological law of the duration of life, both in man and in 

 some of pur domestic animals, and I have arrived at the result that the normal duration of 

 man's life is one century. Yes, a century's life is what Providence meant to give us." Ap- 

 plied to domestic animals, M. Flourens's theory has, he tells us, been proved correct. " The 

 union of the bones with the epiphyses," he says, " takes place in the camel at eight years of 

 age, and he lives forty years ; in the horse at five years, and he lives twenty-five years ; in 

 the ox at four years, and he lives from fifteen to twenty years ; in the dog at two years, and 

 he lives from ten to twelve years ; and in the lion at four years, and he lives twenty." As a 

 necessary consequence of the prolongation of life to which M. Flourens assures man he is 

 entitled, he modifies very considerably his different ages. "I prolong the duration of 

 infancy," he says, "up to ten years, because it is from nine to ten that the second dentition 

 is terminated. I prolong adolescence up to twenty years, because it is at that age that the 

 development of the bones ceases, and consequently the increase of the body in length. I 

 prolong youth up to the age of forty, because it is only at that age that the increase of the 

 body in bulk terminates. After forty the body does not grow, properly speaking ; the aug- 

 mentation of its volume, which then takes place, is not a veritable organic development, but 

 a simple accumulation of fat. After the growth, or more exactly speaking, the development 

 in length and bulk has terminated, man enters into what I call the period of invigoration 

 that is, when all our parts become more complete and firmer, our functions more assured, 

 and the whole organism more perfect. This period lasts to sixty-five or severity years ; and 

 then begins old age, which lasts for thirty years." But though M. Flourens thus lengthens 

 man's days, he warns him, more than once, that the prolongation of them can only be obtained 

 on one rigorous condition " that of good conduct, of existence always occupied of labor, of 



