236 



PRODUCTS OF DIFFERENT FEEDS. 



the other in feeding. For example, taking the mean of the 

 experimental results in the above table, 367f Ibs. of rye straw 

 contain as much nutriment as 100 Ibs. of meadow hay. A 

 Merino sheep weighing 90 pounds, daily consumes 3 pounds of 

 hay : and to consume its equivalent in rye straw, it would 

 have daily to masticate, digest, etc., a fraction over eleven 

 pounds of it a feat impracticable for a variety of reasons, 

 and among others for the very obvious one that its stomachs 

 could not be made to hold it, even though digestion should go 

 on with twice its natural rapidity. 



The experiments made in feeding Saxon sheep in Silesia, 

 by Reaumur, show in what manner the nutritive parts of 

 certain ordinary vegetable products enter into the compo- 

 sition of different animal products. 



At first view, there is a degree of incongruity between the 

 theoretical and practical results exhibited in the first of the 

 above tables, which, without due reflection, might materially 

 tend to impair our confidence in the accuracy of the tests 

 which are relied on in agricultural chemistry. But a further 

 glance discloses the fact that these results do not differ more 

 widely from each other than those obtained by practical 

 experiments. How are we to explain these latter incongrui- 

 ties? If the results of actual experiments experiments, 

 too, conducted with care by men possessing unusual ability 

 and means to do so understandingly and accurately differ 

 so widely, what then? Are we thence to conclude that 

 experience is worth nothing, or that nature acts without 

 any uniform laws ? that every agricultural result, whether 

 successful or unsuccessful, depends upon chance or that 

 fatality which is expressed in the delusive and detestable 

 word "luck?" 



