FOOD AND FEEDING. 391 



an aiticle of sustenance. To give our theoretical equivalents all 

 the precision that is really desirable, it would be necessary to as- 

 certain the quantity of organic matter which escaped digestion with 

 reference to each particular species of food. This is an inquiry 

 which it is my purpose to enter upon by and by. The labor com- 

 pleted, we should then be in possession of tables in regard to the 

 proportion of the non-azotized as well as the azotized principles ; 

 and further, to the quantity of inert matter which it would be proper 

 to deduct from the weight of the ration allowed in each case. 



To have determined the azote in an article of food, then, is not 

 to have done all that is strictly necessary : still azote is the scarce 

 element in all kinds of vegetable food ; starch, gum, sugar, pectine, 

 oil, are universally present, and generally in adequate quantity. As 

 articles, as unlike one another as possible, I have mentioned' pota- 

 toes and meadow hay. Now the theory indicates 300 of the root for 

 100 of the dried grass ; and I can state positively, from long and re- 

 peated observation, that it is not advisable in practice to substitute 

 less than 280 of potatoes for 100 of meadow-hay. 



The state of dryness of certain kinds of forage may have a mark- 

 ed influence on their nutritious qualities. They may even decline 

 in nutritive value by the process of drying, so that analysis of itself 

 may lead us into error in regard to the nutritive value of dry articles 

 of food. Breeders have in fact long suspected that green fodder is 

 more nutritious than dry fodder; that grass, clover, &c., lose nutri- 

 tious matter by being made into hay. That the thing is so in fact, 

 appears to have been demonstrated by a skilful agriculturist, well 

 acquainted with the art of experimenting,* who found that 9 lbs. of 

 green lucern were quite equal in foddering sheep to S,-^,, lbs of the 

 same forage made into hay, while he at the same time ascertained 

 that, 9 lbs. of green lucern would not on an average yield more than 

 2.02 lbs. of hay. In allowing each sheep Sp^ lbs. of lucern hay as 

 its ration, consequently, it was as if the animal had had 14.34 or 

 more than 14| lbs. of the green vegetable for its allowance. 



These practical facts are obviously of great importance ; they 

 prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the belief of agriculturists in 

 general as to the immense advantages of consuming clover and lu- 

 cern as green meat is well founded. Nor is this all ; it is not mere- 

 ly the absolutely greater feeding value of the crop green than of the 

 crop dried and made into hay ; there is further, the saving of ex- 

 pense in making the hay, and still further, the escape of all risk from 

 loss through bad weather during the process, by which that which 

 was valuable fodder but a few days before, may become fit only for 

 the dung-hill. Still, because 100 of green clover or lucern repre- 

 sent 23 of the same articles dried, it does not follow that the feeding 

 properties of the fodder in each of the two states can be truly re- 

 presented by the ratios of these numbers to one another. Messrs. 

 Perrault find from their experiments that the true relation is 8 to 3. 

 By assuming 71.5 lbs. as the quantity of dry forage obtained from 



* M. Perrault de Jotemps, in Journ. d'Ajjricult. v. iii. p. 97. 



