CHEMISTRY OF FOODS AND FEEDING. 1191 



In this experiment it cost sixty per cent more to make a 

 pound of pork in the last two weeks than in the first period. 



Profitable Feeding. To feed profitably it is necessary 

 'that the feeder should get the largest possible return from a 

 given amount of food. It is not enough that the animal shall 

 be made to grow or get fat or give milk, but this must be done 

 with the smallest possible expenditure of food, and to under- 

 stand how to do this constitutes the science of profitable feeding. 



Two farmers may be engaged in raising cattle ; they may 

 have equally good stock; they may show equally heavy weights 

 at the butcher's block, and take equal premiums at fairs, but if 

 one farmer accomplish these results with less expenditure for 

 food than the other it is evident that he will make the greater 

 profit. 



To attain this greater profit it is essential that the largest 

 possible proportion of the food used shall be converted into 

 growth, milk, or fat, and the smallest possible proportion be ex- 

 pended in production of heat and energy that the least possi- 

 ble proportion shall be rejected by the animal unused, and at 

 the same time that the food used shall not be more expensive 

 than is necessary for the attainment of these results. To do 

 this, attention must be given to all the various points heretofore 

 laid down. 



The first requisite is a good breed of stock, animals that in- 

 herit large digestive and assimilative powers, and quiet and 

 gentle dispositions. 



Second. Protection from cold. The animal heat must be 

 maintained, and food used for this purpose can not be used for 

 any other. Locomotive boilers are covered with a good, warm 

 coat of non-conducting material, and this, with polished sheet- 

 iron to avoid all waste of heat, as waste of heat means waste of 

 coal. Waste of heat in the animal means waste of food, and 

 just as more coal will be required to accomplish the same re- 

 sults with a locomotive if the boiler is exposed without protec- 

 tion to the blasts of winter, so more food will be required by 

 the animal if it is likewise exposed. And this food brings no 

 profit ; it is simply wasted. 



