238 COST AND ECONOMY OP DIFFERENT FEEDS. 



better proof to the contrary, to admit its equality and presume 

 its superiority. When science and such an array of practice 

 combine to pronounce peas and beans about equal with eacli 

 other, and among the most nutritious of vegetable products, 

 we ought to adopt that conclusion, if, indeed, we did not 

 already know so notorious a fact. Accordingly, as few sheep 

 farmers are able to make all these experiments for themselves 

 in advance of trying them directly on the body of their flocks, 

 all ought to see the expediency of a very careful study of 

 such a table of Nutritive Equivalents as the preceding one. 



Reaumur's experiments, given on page 236, are also 

 especially valuable : and it is only to be wished that their 

 accuracy had also been tested by numerous other experiments 

 directed to the same specific objects of inquiry. Still, I have 

 great general confidence in them. Some of the facts he 

 arrives at are very striking, as, for instance, the superiority 

 of peas over every other vegetable substance named in his 

 list, in the specific production of wool, while barley and 

 wheat considerably exceed it, and oats nearly equal it, in the 

 production of tallow. And a still more striking fact is found 

 in the increase of wool and diminution of tallow produced by 

 adding straw to "good hay" as a habitual food. If there is 

 no mistake in this showing, it is a high point of policy in the 

 wool grower to feed straw, and in the mutton grower to 

 avoid feeding it. 



This brings me to another very important consideration, 

 viz., the relative cost and general economy of the different 

 kinds of feeds. According to Reaumur's Table, 1,000 pounds 

 of peas produce 134 pounds live weight of carcass, 14 pounds 

 11 ounces of wool, and 41 pounds 6 ounces of tallow, while 

 1,000 pounds of mangel wurzel produce 38 pounds of live 

 weight, 5 pounds 3^- ounces of wool, and 6 pounds 5^ ounces 

 of tallow. Thus the latter produces between a third and a 

 fourth as much live weight, a little more than a third as much 

 wool, and nearly a seventh as much tallow. Peas weigh 60 

 Ibs. to the bushel. If we assume that mangel wurzels weigh 

 the same,* four bushels of them will produce more live weight 

 and weight of wool than one bushel of peas. Not being per- 

 sonally familiar with the culture of mangel wurzel, I will, for 

 the purposes of this illustration, substitute Swedish turnips 



* This is the statutory weight of a bushel of potatoes in New York, but no 

 weight is prescribed for other roots. I have never raised or weighed a bushel of 

 mangel wurzels but there cannot be difference enough between their weight and 

 that of potatoes to make any material difference for the purposes of the comparison 

 instituted in the text. 



