84 ' CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



The object of the meat producer should be, by a liberal supply of food 

 beyond natural requirements, not only to maintain this equilibrium, 

 but also to create an artificial condition favorable to the production of 

 fat. When the ox is thoroughly fattened every cell throughout its cell- 

 ular tissue is well filled. In the beef the fat will be firm and solid and 

 of a rich creamy color. The fat in mutton is whiter and greater in pro- 

 portion to the carcass. In pork the proportion [is still greater. The 

 more we restrain the movements of the body the greater is the aptitude 

 for fattening. Contentment aids the formation of fat. Violent exercise, 

 by stimulating the lungs, consumes the fatty matters. The size of the 

 lung has a marked influence upon fattening. A large lung, developed 

 by abundant exercise, burns away the heat-producing matter and re- 

 tards fattening. On the other hand, a small lung and a small liver, 

 though they render the possessor much more delicate, are favorable to 

 fattening. In animals nature provides in a time of plenty for some of 

 their requirements in a time of scarcity. Starch and sugar maintain 

 heat and vitality, but unless there is a supply of the fats and oils the 

 progress will be slow, because the maintenance of the vital principles 

 taxes the latter. All vegetable foods vary with the age of the plants 

 yielding them and the soil they grow upon. Hence the care necessary 

 in selecting seeds for laying down pastures and in cutting and harvest- 

 ing hay and straw. When grass is comparatively young it abounds in 

 flesh-forming substances and in sugar. As the plant ripens the sugar 

 becomes changed into starch and the starch into wood fiber. This 

 shows the desirability of cutting all grass crops for hay before they are 

 fully ripened. Cattle fed upon over-ripened hay have to consume some 

 13 or 14 per cent, more of indigestible woody fiber. 



Value of various feeds. Some experiments in feeding with hay alone 

 have shown that in a large ox the store condition may be maintained 

 by giving it about one-fiftieth of its own weight per day, or, if working, 

 one-fortieth. A fattening ox, having nothing else, will consume from 

 one-twentieth to one-twenty-fifth of its live weight, according to the 

 degree of fatness it has attained. Sheep are said to consume about 

 one-thirtieth part of their live weight of hay per day. These figures 

 will show us that when hay commands a good price in the market it is 

 not advisable to use it in any large quantity alone as a meat producer. 

 With hay slightly moldy or much weathered, the process of steaming 

 chaff, with an admixture of some maize meal, finely ground linseed- 

 cake, or even bran, renders it more palatable and much more nutritious, 

 as it greatly increases its digestibility. New hay is unwholesome and 

 innutritions as compared with good old hay. After-math hay is better 

 adapted for cattle than for horses. Straw is, perhaps, less in favor than 

 formerly as a cattle food. 



Ungenial seasons, wet harvest, and blight and mildew in the crops 

 have lessened our dependence upon it, and the high price it has of late 

 years realized in the market has placed it more on a par with hay for 

 feeding out. But the practice of cutting down large quantities of it as 

 it comes fresh from the threshing-machine in the summer time, mixing 

 with a ton of the cut straw about a hundred weight of green-cut fodder 

 and a bushel of salt,'is kept up in many places , and when the admix- 

 ture is properly made so as to produce a slight fermentation, it makes a 

 very economical winter feed. The fermentation in straw increases its 

 albumen about one per cent, and its feeding value as much as 25 per 

 cent. Green oat straw and pea straw fed out together are but little in- 

 ferior to hay. The oat straw of Scotland, where the crop is cut much 

 greener than ours, far surpasses that of this country in feeding proper- 



