NATURE AND VALUE OF FOOD." 47 



meal, or, better still, an equal mixture of all three, 41b. ; beans, 

 peas, or lentils, according to market, 21b. ; locust beans or malt, 

 lib. — the whole being reduced to a fine powder, and thoroughly- 

 mixed. In the above we have a due admixture of the flesh- 

 forming and fat-producing elements. During the later stages 

 of fattening we might discontinue the beans, and increase the 

 proportion of either linseed cake or palm-nut meal. Commencing 

 with the calf when weaned, ^Ib. of such a mixture daily, dis- 

 tributed over the chaff and pulped roots, would be ample, to be 

 increased to lib. for the first winter, 21b. during the second ; 

 and when the animal is put up for feeding, 41b. to commence, 

 and 71b. to 81b. to finish, will be found quite suificient with a 

 due proportion of roots and chaff. If we are anxious to over- 

 feed animals — as for show, for example — it is necessary to 

 stimulate the appetite by the use of tonics and carminatives, 

 just as the East Indian with a damaged hver and bad digestion 

 craves for pickles ; but the use of such food in early life must 

 be injurious, and cannot be recommended. 



We need hardly insist upon the advantage of using articles 

 good of their kind, well grown, properly matured, and free from 

 adulteration ; though more costly, they are in their effects 

 cheaper than inferior articles. Linseed oil-cake ranks at the head 

 of all purchased foods, being from its complex nature admirably 

 suited to feeding purposes; the chief bar to its use is the compara- 

 tively high price of a genuine article, and the great difiiculty of 

 finding such. The proportion of really pure cake made is small 

 compared with the quantity of inferior, and that, again, differs 

 according to the variety of the ingredients of which it is com- 

 posed. In Yorkshire this has been so much felt that at Driffield 

 the farmers have made a company for crushing pure linseed, 

 and thus have secured a first-rate article. Manufacturers have 

 been blamed for the low quality of their cake, when too often 

 the fault rests with the consumer, who is not willing to pay the 

 higher price; Great progress has been made towards sound 

 views on this matter, and cheap rubbish is not now, as formerly, 

 eagerly bought up. The publicity given by the Eoyal Agricul- 

 tural Society to adulterated and inferior makes has been most 

 serviceable. It would have been a great misfortune to the 

 farming community if, from prudential consideration, the Society 



