136 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



pounds of corn per week would be capable of producing the 

 increase obtained from the consumption of twenty-six and 

 one-half pounds. Twenty-two pounds were used to sustain 

 the vital functions, and four and one-half pounds for increase. 

 In other words, eighty-six per cent, of the food was used to 

 sustain the vital functions, and fifteen per cent, to produce 

 growth. 



In experiments made by Dr. Miles the previous year on a 

 pair of fine-bred Essex pigs about eleven weeks old, fed, as 

 these "natives" were, for sixteen weeks on corn-meal, it 

 required only four and one-third pounds of meal to pro- 

 duce one pound of growth. On the average, the pigs ate a 

 little less than twenty-two and one-half pounds of corn per 

 week, and gained a little over five pounds per week. 



These Essex pigs grew very fat, and we may safely con- 

 clude that the increase differed little in composition from the 

 composition of the increase determined by Lawes & Gilbert. 

 As we have seen, it would require one hundred pounds of 

 corn to furnish fifty-four pounds of such increase. It follows, 

 therefore, that of the one hundred pounds of corn eaten to 

 produce twenty-three pounds of increase, about fifty-seven 

 pounds were used to support the vital functions, and forty- 

 four pounds to produce growth. 



In other words, the "native" pigs ate twenty-two pounds 

 of corn each per week to keep them alive, and the Essex pigs 

 less than thirteen pounds, or eighty-five per cent, in the one 

 case, and fifty-seven per cent, in the other. 



The Essex pigs,- when well bred, are remarkably quiet. 

 And this accounts, to a considerable extent, for the small 

 proportion of the food required to sustain the vital functions. 



It will be observed that the natives eat more food than the 

 Essex. This, so far from being, in itself, an argument in 

 favor of the Essex, is an objection. 



If the Essex pigs in Dr. Miles's experiments had eaten as 

 much as the natives : and if, as I assume, they require no 

 more to sustain the vital functions in that case than in the 

 other, it is quite certain that they would have grown and 

 flitted even more rapidly than they did. The natives ate 

 twenty-six and one-half pounds of corn-meal per week. The 

 Essex ate less than twenty-two and one-half. Now this 



