270 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



others, and it is for the intelligent farmer to select such as 

 are best for accomplishing his particular purposes. The 

 very young animal requires large quantities of the phosphate 

 of lime for the formation of bone ; and this is yielded in the 

 milk in larger proportions than from any other food. The 

 growing animal wants bone, muscle and a certain amount of 

 fat, and this is procured from the grasses, roots and grain ; 

 from the former when fed alone, and from the two* latter 

 when mixed with hay or grass. Horses, cattle and sheep, 

 need hay to qualify the too watery nature of the roots, and 

 the too condensed nutritiveness of the grain. Animals that 

 are preparing for the shambles, require vegetable oils or fat, 

 starch, sugar or gum. The first is contained in great abun- 

 dance in flax and cotton-seed, the sun-flower and many other 

 of the mucilaginous seeds. Indian corn is the most fatten- 

 ing grain. The potato contains the greatest proportion of 

 starch, and the sugar beet has large quantities of sugar, and 

 both consequently are good for stall-feeding. The ripe sugar- 

 cane is perhaps the most fattening of vegetables, if we except 

 the oily seeds and grain. The Swedes turnep is a good food 

 to commence feeding to cattle and sheep, but where great 

 ripeness in animals is desired, they should be followed with 

 beets, carrots or potatoes and grain. The table of the 

 average composition of the different crops, which we 

 insert from Johnston, affords another view of the nutri- 

 tive qualities of various kinds of food, before given from 

 Boussingault, page 158, and from which it is principally 

 abridged, and it will be found a valuable reference for their 

 nutritive and fattening qualities. He says, " in drawing up 

 this table, I have adopted the proportions of gluten, for the 

 most part, from Boussingault. Some of them, however, 

 appear to be very doubtful. The proportions of fatty matter 

 are also very unceitain. With a few exceptions, those above 

 given have been taken fromSprengel, and they are, in gene- 

 ral, stated considerably too low. It is an interesting fact, 

 that the proportion of fatty matter in and immediately under 

 the husk of the grains of corn, is generally much greater 

 than in the substance of the corn itself. Thus I have found 

 the pollard pf wheat to yield more than twice as much oil 

 as the fine flour obtained from the same sample of grain. 

 The four portions separated by the miller from a superior 

 sample of wheat grown in the neighborhood of Durham, 

 gave of oil respectively : fine flour, 1-5 per cent. ; pollard, 



