CULTURE. 99 



fifths nitrogen, which is the base of all these compounds, and 

 yet the animal inevitably starves to death unless it has a sup- 

 ply of these compounds of nitrogen through the plant, or iu 

 case of carnivorous animals, through the flesh of other animals, 

 or insects which has in turn been derived from the plant. 

 The same remarks apply to the carbonaceous, that is, the 

 elements that are consumed to maintain the animal heat, and 

 that are stored away in the system as fat, and also to the min- 

 eral elements which make up bone. Of whatever the animal 

 frame may consist, whether bone, flesh or fat, it must have 

 been fed into it either in the plant or the milk of its dam or 

 the flesh of other animals, and therefore must come through 

 its food. While carbonaceous substances compose by far the 

 largest part of animal food and animal forms, it has been very 

 clearly demonstrated that the animal fed on purely carbon- 

 aceous food, such as sugar or starch, will speedily starve, no 

 matter how abundant the food; and it has been as clearly 

 proved that foods having an excess of nitrogen when fed to 

 herbivorous animals will sooner or later produce disease and 

 death. It seems that when carbonaceous elements are lacking 

 the system can use nitrogenous compounds for keeping up the 

 animal heat, just as for lack of coal we may burn wood in the 

 stove. But the carbonaceous elements can not be used for the 

 purpose of building up either the muscular system, or the 

 skeleton, commonly called by scientists, the osseous or bony 

 system. It is therefore evident that much of the success in 

 stock feeding depends upon supplying these elements as nearly 

 as possible in their proper proportion, feeding nitrogenous 

 food in the proportion in which it is required ior growth and 

 repair of waste, carbonaceous foods in the proportion in which 

 they are needed for keeping up the animal heat and finishing 

 the animal for the shambles, and furnishing mineral elements 

 in the proportion needed for the growth of the osseous system. 

 In compounding feeding rations, as in every thing else, 

 Nature is the best teacher. She emphasizes in the most em- 

 phatic way the necessity of a balanced ration. She provides 

 in the milk for the young of each race, a ration composed of 

 the materials in the due proportion that each needs, and man 

 soon finds out that if he interferes and takes away the carbo- 

 hydrates or the albuminoids, as for example the fat, from the 

 milk in the shape of cream, or the albuminoids in the shape 

 of cheese, the young fail to reach their proper development, 

 pine away or perhaps die. The skim-milk calf, for example, 

 unless the balance is kept ur bv means of cheaper fats, is 



