178 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



But it is in rearing calves for the butcher that the greatest skill in feeding is ilis- 

 played, where long practice has made the farmers expert in this branch of husbandry. 

 To the man who has a calf and a milk cow, the principal question is, how can I, in 

 the locality in which I am placed, make the most money of my calf and my milk ? 

 Had I better give my calf a little of the milk, and sell the remainder in the form o^ 

 new milk— or had I better make butter and give the skimmed milk to my calves— or 

 will the veal, if I give my calf all the milk, pay me a better price in the end? The 

 result of many trials has shown, that in some districts the high price obtained for 

 well fed veal gives a greater profit than can be derived from the milk in any other 

 way. 



While the calf is very young — during the first two or three weeks— its bones and 

 muscles chiefly grow. It requires the materials of these, therefore, more than fat, 

 and hence half the milk it gets, at first, may be skimmed, and a little bean meal may 

 be mixed with it to add more of the casein or curd out of whicli the muscles are to be 

 formed. The costive effect of the bean meal must be guarded against by occasional 

 medicine, if required. 



In the next stage, more fat is necessary, and in the third week at latest, full milk, 

 with all its cream, should be given, and more milk than the mother supplies, if the 

 calf requires it. Or, instead of the cream, a less costly kind of fat maybe used. Oil- 

 cake, finely crushed, or linseed meal, may supply at a cheap rate the fat which, in the i\ 

 form of cream, sells for much money. And, instead of the additional milk, bean 4 

 meal in larger quantity may be tried, and if cautiously and skilfully used, the best i 

 effects on the size of the calf and the firmness of the veal may be anticipated. 



In the third or fattening stage, the custom is, with the same quantity of milk, to give 4 

 double its natural quantity of cream — that is, to supply in this way the fat which the ♦ 

 animal is wished chiefly to lay on. This cream may either be mixed directly with 

 the mother's milk, or, what is better, the afterings of several cows may be given to 

 the calf along with its food. For the expensive cream there might no doubt be sub- 

 stituted many cheaper kinds of fat which the young animal might be expected to ap- 

 propriate a=i readily as it does the fat of the milk. Linseed meal is given with econ-ij| 

 omy. Might not vegetable oils and even animal fats be made up into emulsionstl 

 which the calf would readily swallow, and which would increase his weight at aiw 

 equally low cost ? A fat pease-soup has been found to keep a cow long in milk ; might 1 

 it not be made profitable also to a fattening calf ? I 



The selection of articles of food which will specially increase the size of the bonei 

 in the growing animal, by supplying a large quantity of the i)hosphates, is at presenl 

 limited in a considerable degree. The grain of wheat, barley, and oats is the soun 

 from which these phosphates are most certainly aud most abundantly supplied to th( 

 animals that feed upon them. But in many cases corn is too expensive a food, ani 

 those kinds of corn which contain the largest proportion of the phosphates sup] 

 only a comparatively small quantity in a given time to the growing animal, 

 should not bone-dust or bone-meal be introduced as an article of general food for grow- 

 ing animals ? There is no reason to believe that animals would dislike it — none thi 

 they would be unable to digest it. With this kind of food at our command, we mij 

 hope to minister directly to the weak limbs of our growing stock, and at pleasure 

 provide the spare-boned animal with the materials out of which a limb of 

 strength might be built up. 



Chemical analysis comes further to our aid in pointing out the kind of food w< 

 ought to give for the i)urpose of increasing this or that part of the animal body. 

 Thus in regard to the same growth of bone, it appears that, while linseed and other 

 cakes are mainly used with the view of adding lo (lie fat, some varieties are more fit- 

 ted at the same time to minister to the growth of bone than others are. Thus four va- 

 rieties of oil-cake examined in my laboratory, contained rcsjieetively of earthy phos 

 phatesand of other inorganic matter in 100 lbs. the following quantities : 



