MEAT PRODUCTION 



435 



scanty, owing to the laborious and expensive nature of such experi- 

 ments. About the only results available are those of Kern and 

 Wattenberg on lambs and those of Jordan on steers, that is, these are 

 the only ones which permit of a comparison of the rate of growth of 

 similar animals in successive periods. Both these experiments have 

 been outlined in Chapter XI (458) . Table 112 shows the gain of fat- 

 free lean meat in Kern and Wattenberg's experiments as compared 

 with the estimated gains of total protein. The term "meat" refers 

 only to the meat of the "butcher's pieces," freed from sinews and 

 coarser connective tissue by passage through a meat grinder. The 

 production of fat-free lean meat was, in general, parallel to that of 

 total protein, diminishing with advancing maturity. Apparently, 

 however, the rate of gain of total protein diminished less rapidly than 

 that of edible meat. 



Jordan's experiments include a comparison of the weights and 

 chemical composition of two pairs of animals at the end of twenty- 

 seven months' and seventeen months' feeding respectively. The pro- 

 tein of the lean meat after mechanical separation from the fat tissue, 

 and the total body protein, were as follows : 



TABLE 113. GAIN OF PROTEIN BY CATTLE 



So far as conclusions can be safely drawn from these few 

 results, it would appear that the rate of gain of lean meat runs 

 parallel to that of total protein and like the latter diminishes 

 with age, the diminution being somewhat more rapid in the for- 

 mer case than in the latter. At all ages the storage of total 



1 Nos. i and 4 were somewhat lighter animals than Nos. 2 and 3. The protein 

 content has been computed to the live weight of the heavier animal in each case. 



