1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



281 



2J, That MO mechanical method of breaking or j 

 griridirii; is more than panially elTicient.. ; 



3J, That ihe most efficient metiiods of brtak- 

 in<i[ the u^lohules, is by heat, by iernientaiion, or 

 by (lie chemical afrency of acids or alkalies. 



4th, Tliat (he dextrine, wliich is the kernel, as 

 it were, ol" each irlnhule, is alone soluble, and 

 iherelore alone nutritive. 



01 h, That the sln^lls of the frlnlnileg. when re- 

 duced to h-aormcnig by mechanism or heat, are in- 

 soluble, and iherel()re not nulriiive. 



6ih, That, thouirh the Irairments of these shells 

 are not nutritive, they are indispensable to diires- 

 tion, eitiier from their distending the stomach ami 

 bowels, or from some o her cause not understood, 

 it having been proved by experiment that concen- 

 trated nourishment, such as cane-sugar, essentia 

 of beef, or osmazomq, cannot long sustain life, 

 without some mixture of coarser and less nutri- 

 tive I bod. 



7lh, That the economical preparation of all 

 food ccmtaininir slobnles of fecula, consists in per- 

 fectly breakintr the shells, and rendering the dex- ! 

 trine cnntaine<l in them soluble and digestible, j 

 while the fraijments of the shells are at the same i 

 time rendered more bulky, so as the more readily j 

 to fill the stomach. ; 



We hope these principles have been here put 

 in intelligible and unequivocal language, so that 

 they may not be misunderstood,, seeing that they 

 are of the very highest practical im|)ortance, in 

 preparing Ihe food of all live-sloc,k as well as of 

 Our own. But lest some of our readers of the 

 old school, who are apt to reject most novelties as 

 theoretical, should refuse to admit the truth of the 

 deductions, it may be well to corroborate the re- 

 Bults from actual experiments mrtde by tliose who 

 were icjnbrant o{" the very existence of the glo- 

 bules described by M. Raspail, or the dextrine of 

 M. Biot. 



^Experiments on feeding. 



Some of the most instructive experiments' upon I 

 the leeiiing of farm stock with different materials, j 

 were made by an inteiliijent foreign aoriculturist, 

 M. Mathieu de Dombasles, and published in a 

 work little known in this country, (he ^nnales de 

 Roville. The experiments usually made on this 

 subject have been conducted upon the principle of 

 continuing one species of food, such as hay or car- 

 rots, for a given time; butM. de Dombasles reflect- 

 ing that it is neither natural nor agreeable to anv 

 animal to be confined lor a length of time to the 

 eame species of food, adopted a different method. 

 He separated into several groups the cattle on 

 which he designed to experiment, and brought 

 those in each group as nearly as possible to a 

 given weight, by feeding them with an exactly 

 weiithed proportion of common articles of food, 

 diversified to suit their taste. When he had pro- 

 ceeded so far, he then began to tal'e away from 

 their diversified Ibod a known proportion of one of 

 them, such as lucern hay (luzerne seche,) replac- 

 ing it by some sort of root, such as carrots, gradu- 

 ally increased or diminished, so that each indivitl- 

 ual in the group came up to and sustained the 

 weight it had stood at before the chanrre. The 

 comparison of the quantities thus ascertained by 

 trial to be equivalent, gave the practical propor- 

 tions of their nutritive properties, under the con- 

 ditions thus associated. 



Vol. V-36 



The results thus ohtainetl by M. de Dombasles 

 by trials with sheep, a[ipeared to place carrots very 

 liir below the rank ustuilly assigned to (hem as food 

 ((ir sheep by fanners on the continent, and even as 

 food for horses, when substituted for grain. But it 

 is imnortant to remark, that M. de Dombasles gave 

 Hie carrots in a raw state (o his sheep, and conse- 

 quently fr()r!\ their stomachs being unable^ in Ihe 

 pro(;es8 ol' di<restion, to cause the globules in the 

 carrot containinir ihe dextrine (o burst, they de- 

 rived little nutriment from a substance which is 

 undoubtedly vetv nutritive when the dextrine is 

 developed bv boiling. Tlie intelligent liirmers in 

 Deliiiunij who seem to be almost a century before 

 other parts of Europe in improvement, never, it ia 

 said, give any roots to their live-stock without boil- 

 ing. 



The digestion of food is in all animals partly a 

 chemical and partly a mechanical process, and 

 varies nni<;h in different animals, even when they 

 feed on similar aliment; for exaniple, (he rabbit, 

 the horse, and (he eame-cock, when led upon oats 

 or barley. The horse, and even the rabbit, when 

 fed on oats, swallow many grains without crusli- 

 inu (hem with iheir teeth, and their slomachs not 

 beiuij endowed wit,h (he power of digesting solid 

 uncrushed ijrain, it is voided whole, and so little 

 changed as frequently to be capable of germinat- 

 inj. In (he case of (he game-cockj again, and 

 all irallinaceous fowls which feed on grain, it is 

 uniformly swallovved whole, their bills not being 

 adapted for bruising i(, like (he (eeth of the horse, 

 nor lor shelling it, like the linnet and sparrows. 

 But the gizzard of these fowls has not only sufR- 

 cient power lo crush oafs and barlej', but even, as 

 Spallanzani proved, to reduce glass lo powder; yet, 

 with ail this power^ so very much greater than the 

 diiresiive powers of the horse, poultry cannot, as 

 will be immediately proved, completely extract 

 the dextrine from grain, unless assisted to do so 

 by artificial means, besides their powers of diges- 

 tion. T!ie celebi'ated M. Reaumur undertook a 

 series of experirpenis on raw and on boiled grain 

 in feeding, which, though made long before the 

 discovery of dextrine, sfronffly corroborate (he 

 views of MM-. Raspail and Biot, (he more so, in- 

 deed, frorii Mi Reaumi^r's non-acquaintance with 

 the prit^ciple. 



The farmers in Francei who keep poultry, hare 

 long been in the habit ot cooking the grain given 

 to (owls which they intend to fatten, boiling it in 

 water till it is soft enough to be easily bruised be- 

 tween (he firiijrers, (he heat causing it to swell (ill 

 the mealy portion of the grain splits the chaffy en- 

 velope, and this they term bursting. It is there- 

 fore the popular opinion, that boiled grain is more 

 nutritive and fartening than raw jjrfiin, an opinion 

 (<iiinded, however, upon vague notions, which M< 

 Reaumur endeavored to base upon precise calcula- 

 tion. 



Boiling of ^rain.-^For this purpose M. Reau-' 

 mur caused about four measures (each 1^ pints 

 English, or^ihs. of a chopin Scotch) of each of 

 the six common sorts of grain, to be boiled till they 

 were well burst, (which may be fairly taken to 

 mean that two-thirds of the dextrine was set free), 

 and he found that (he increase of bulk in each sort 

 was as under: — 



Four measures of oats, after being 

 boiled to bursting, filled ^ measures, 



