WIXTKR FEEDING OF LIVE STOCK. 575 



These are the general principles on which the feeding of ani- 

 mals depends. At the first glance they seem to suggest a simple 

 set of rules by which the most skillful feeding should be guided. 

 But as we analyze them more closely and see how the result is 

 influenced by a variety of considerations, especially by the peculiar 

 temperament of the individual animal, the whole question becomes 

 involved in an intricacy that is thus far beyond our full compre- 

 hension, and we soon learn that no rules and no theories on the 

 subject are of much practical value. Certain general principles 

 are to be borne always in mind, and we should avoid their direct 

 violation, but bevond this we must seek our only help in individual 

 experience and close observation. 



These general principles are, so far as they can be simply 

 stated, the following : — 



1. Food contains both fat-forming (or heat-producing) and 

 muscle-and-bone-forming materials. 



2. The proportions of these elements arc different in differei t 

 kinds of food. 



3. We shouiQ give a larger proportion of one or of the other, 

 according to the condition and requirements of the animal. That 

 is: a fattening animal should have an excess of the fat-forming 

 elements, and a growing or a working animal should have an 

 excess of the muscle-and-bone-forming elements. 



4. Animals subjected to excessive cold have use for more heat- 

 producing (or fat-forming) material than have those which are 

 kept warmly housed, or which live in a warmer climate. 



5. Work, especially y^j^ work, develops bone and muscle, and 

 give^ the system a tendency to appropriate food to this develop- 

 ment rather than to the accumulation of fat, which the more rapid 

 and full respiration that work induces causes the fat-forming parts 

 of the food to be consumed in the production of heat, which is 

 supposed to be the representative of work. Idleness, on the 

 other hand, lessens the muscular development, and induces the 

 production of fat. 



6. The animal system is susceptible — so far as the performance 

 of its functions is concerned — of considerable cultivation. That 



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