176 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



common pungent salt of smelling-bottles; sulphuric, muriatic, anl nitric acids, are 

 extensive articles of commerce, and, with phosphoric acid, may be found at any che- 

 misfs shop, and these acids, as well as their bases — potash, soda, lime, and magnesia — 

 may be had for a trifle, either separately or combined as salts. When, therefore, the 

 appearance and more obvious qualities of these several substances have become fa- 

 miliar, their efficacy as manure may be proved, by mixing them thoroughly with two 

 or three hundred times their weight of mould, and applying the compost to garden 

 plants. The farmer might in this easy way soon become acquainted with the name, 

 character, and properties of the invaluable substance contained invisibl}' in the muck 

 of his yards; and would be the better able, and more desirous, to prevent their stealing 

 away from him." 



Lectures on the Application of Chemistry and Geology to Agricpl- 

 TURE : By Jas. F. W. Johnston, M. A. F. R. S. Published by Wiley & Putnam, 

 New-York. Price 31i cents. 



This IS part the fourth of this series of Lectures, which we have 

 hailed with great pleasure, as they have successively appeared. 

 These are decidedly the greatest addition that has yet been made 

 to the Farmers' Literature, written in a manner that makes them 

 entirely comprehensible to any one who reads them. This part is 

 " On the products of the soil, and their use in the feeding of ani- 

 mals." The following extract will give a good idea of the work, 

 and will be interesting to those engaged in raising and fattening 

 animals : 



OF THE KIND AND QUANTITY OF ADDITIONAL FOOD REQUIRED BY 

 THE FATTENING ANIMAL. 



" In the animal which is increasing in size or in weight, the food has a double func 

 tion to perform. It must sustain and it must increase the body. To increase the body, 

 an additional (juantity of food must be consumed, but the kind or nature of this addi- 

 tional food will depend upon the kind of increase which the animal is making or is 

 intended to make. 



One of the important objects of the stock farmer is to make his full grown animals 

 lay on fat, so that they may as quickly as possible, and at the least cost, be made 

 ready for the butcher. To effect this object, he adjusts the kind and quantity of the 

 food he gives, to the practical object he wishes to attain. 



We have already seen reason to believe, that the natural and immediate source of 

 the fat of animals is in the oily matter which the food contains. If we wish only, or 

 chiefly, to lay on fat, therefore, we ought to give some kind of food which contains a 

 larger proportion of fatty matter than that upon which the animal has been accustom- ( 

 cd to live. This is what the practical man has actually learned to do. To his sheep | 

 and oxen he gives oil-cake or linseed oil mixed with chopped straw, to his dogs | 

 cracklings,* to his geese and turkeys Indian corn, which contains much oil, and tO i 

 his poultry beef or mutton suet. 



• Cracklings are the skinny parts of the suet from which the tallow has been for the most 

 part squeezed out by the tallow chandlers. Might cattle not be fattened upon cracklings 

 crushed auJ mixed with their other food? Might not some cheap varieties of oil also be 

 mixed with their food for the purpose of I'atteuing. 



