THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMALS 67 



fed calves, reared under conditions of undue 'exposure. Rela- 

 tively they have an excessive amount of bone and paunch, 

 and hair unduly long and staring. The machinery of diges- 

 tion has not only been weakened, but it has become un- 

 balanced, and never again can it produce entire correctness 

 of development or a complete sufficiency of the same. 



This loss in capacity for correct development is pro- 

 portionate not only to the intensity of the causes which pro- 

 duce it, but it is intensified by the proportionate nearness 

 to or remoteness from the birth period at which it occurs. 

 Suppose, for instance, development in one case is arrested 

 and distorted while the animal is being fed milk, and sup- 

 pose in another case that the hindrance to correct develop- 

 ment does not occur until the animal is a yearling, the loss 

 in capacity for future development will be much less in the 

 second instance than in the first, for the reason that correct 

 habit in digestion had been duly formed in the second 

 instance, while in the first it had been given incorrect bias 

 during the formative period. 



The same thing will happen should the animals be over- 

 fed, that is, should they be given an excessive amount of 

 concentrated foods. Development will not only be checked 

 for the time being, but the capacity for future development 

 will also be lessened. This law or principle of develop- 

 ment will be operative, not only during the period of 

 development, but even subsequently to the maturing period. 

 But the evils resulting from such over-feeding are more 

 disastrous relatively the nearer that they occur to the 

 birth period. 



Some foods cannot be fed to excess, in the sense that 

 feeding them in unlimited quantities will derange digestion. 

 Such, for instance, are grass and good clover hay. Of 

 course it would be possible to require the animal to take 

 so much of these as to interfere with highest possible per- 

 formance in certain directions. To illustrate ; An animal 

 may be required to consume so large a proportion of grass 

 when it is being fitted for exhibition, as to make impossible 



