RAW AND COOKED FOOD COMPARED. 157 



apples, etc. When cooked, the animal eats its food 

 more readily, and a smaller quantity goes farther. 

 This does not apply to all kinds of animals. Accord 

 ing to some experiments, horses, for instance, throve 

 little, if any, better on cooked food than on raw. In 

 some of the trials, the raw food seemed to have the 

 advantage. This is not, however, to be regarded as a 

 general rule. 



It has been said that starch may be changed into 

 sugar and gum in various ways : the application of 

 heat is one of these ways; and in cooking food, this 

 change by means of heat doubtless takes place to a 

 very considerable extent. The starch is not soluble 

 in water, while the sugar, dextrine, and gum, thus 

 formed during cooking, are eminently so : the cooked 

 food is therefore more easily dissolved and digested 

 in the stomach of the animal, and is moreover eaten 

 without any exertion. This ease and quickness of 

 digestion, seems to have the same effect upon many 

 classes of animals in hastening their growth, that has 

 been exemplified in preceding chapters, with regard 

 to some powerful and quite soluble manures applied 

 to plants. It was shown that easy solubility, and 

 therefore quickness of action, were more important 

 than quantity; for instance, that two or three bushels 

 of bones, dissolved in sulphuric acid, would benefit a 

 crop more than sixty or seventy bushels of whole 

 bones. So with the animal; a small portion of food, 

 which it can at once eat, digest, and make into its 

 own bones, muscle, and fat, is worth more than a large 

 quantity of some kind which it can only eat with dif 

 ficulty, and digest slowly. Turnips and parsnips are 

 usually fed raw; but potatoes, pumpkins, apples, and 

 meal, are varieties of food which are almost always 

 better to be cooked, where it is practicable. 



Every farmer should endeavor to have a cellar fitted 

 for the purpose of keeping roots, where they w r ould 

 14 



