No. 4.] SWINE BREEDING AND FEEDING. 211 



"nitrogenous food constituents." The white of the egg, 

 the curd in the milk, are representatives of that class of 

 substances. The next group is a group of substances, 

 of which there is a large number of representatives, and 

 they are the so-called " non-nitrogenous substances," 

 containing the organic constituents of plants, such as 

 starch, sugar, the organic acids, and so on. A large 

 proportion of the weight of plants usually consists of those 

 materials. 



Now, these three groups we have to keep always in mind. 

 Each kind of animal at different stages of growth or under 

 different conditions requires of these three groups different 

 proportions. Investigations have been made on this line, 

 to decide, at least approximately, what is the most economi- 

 cal proportion of one and the other in the feed. For 

 instance : when we start out with young stock coming just 

 from the mother's milk, we do not want to make an abrupt 

 break in the nutrition of the animal -, we must imitate that 

 milk as nearly as possible with something of similar compo- 

 sition. One single constituent will not answer the purpose ; 

 neither the sugar, nor the starch, nor the albumenoids, can 

 support animal life ; it must be a combination of these three. 

 That is a matter of fact, and our business is and has been 

 for the last twenty years to find out what proportion of 

 these different constituents gives the best results. So much 

 in regard to the quality and the character of the food. 



The next question is economy of food. When we select 

 an article of food, the market price, of course, is the first 

 thing we notice. But what commands the highest price in 

 the market is not always the most costly article to use. Our 

 buying of fodder articles must be with the idea of buying 

 just what we need. If we lack nitrogenous constituents in 

 our home-raised articles, we should buy nothing else but 

 the highly concentrated nitrogenous food in our market. 

 There comes the great advantage of the refuse material of a 

 great many manufacturers ; as, for instance, the gluten 

 meal, maize feed, starch feed, etc. All those articles come 

 in most conveniently, and, although costing a high price in 

 comparison with our home-raised articles, they are cheaper 

 articles, for the reason that they leave more behind than 



