9O FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



and fatty tissue, while the dairy breeds will turn the major 

 porRbn into milk. The mutton breeds of sheep will turn 

 the larger portion of the food into meat, but it is meat 

 much unlike that made by beef cattle from the same feed. 

 The wool breeds of sheep will turn a much larger percentage 

 of the food into wool production and it will differ in 

 many respects from the wool of other breeds of sheep. 

 The same food fed to draft horses will be used largely in 

 making or sustaining strong bone and muscle, and if fed to 

 standard-bred horses in making or sustaining finer bone 

 of high quality, and in generating energy or staying power. 

 Thus it is that results so different, are produced from the 

 same foods in that dark laboratory of the digestive and 

 assimilative organs. The same is true of the lard and 

 bacon types of swine. Both may be fed on the same kinds 

 of food for a time at least, and the character of the pork 

 will be very different indeed. 



It is very surprising that materials the same in kind 

 should be thus transformed into products so different. The 

 laboratory in which the transformation takes place is so 

 filled with mystery that the search light of science has not 

 been able to look into it very far. The diverse results from 

 feeding foods essentially the same in kind have a parallel 

 more or less close in the different character of the fruits 

 of the earth, especially those of the same species which 

 grow side by side in the same soil. 



But it must not be concluded that the strength of 

 those habits is such that many of them at least may not be 

 greatly modified. Nor would it be correct to conclude 

 that food alone would not be able to make marked change 

 if given time enough. In this way the bacon hog could be 

 transformed into one of the lard type and vice versa 

 through the agency of food alone. But changes thus 

 brought about by natural causes may be hastened or re- 

 tarded by selection and in other ways. 



