ADDITIONAL FOOD Rr^fJIRED FOR FATTENING. 601 



change or variation he may hope more fully to supply to the animal the 

 necessary quantity of each. 



Second, he will adapt the kind and quantity of food to the age of the 

 animal, and to the other purposes for which it is fed. This rule depends 

 partly upon the same fact, that different vegetables contain the several 

 kinds of necessary food in different proportions, but in a great degree also 

 upon the further fact, that the animal requires these substances in differ- 

 ent proportions, according to its age and to the special purpose for which 

 it is fed. Let me direct your attention to this latter fact a littler more 

 at length. 



§ 8. O/" 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 function to perform. It must sustain and it must increase the 

 body. To increase the body, an additional quantity of food must be con- 

 sumed, but the kind or nature of this additional 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 oi the food he gives, to the practical ob- 

 ject he wishes to attain. 



We have already seen reason to believe, that the natural and imme- 

 diate 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 accustomed 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 liis poultn,'' beef or mutton suet. 



Many experiments are yet wanting to determine with accuracy the 

 proportion of fat contained in all the different kinds of food usually con- 

 sumed by animals. Nearly all we yet know upon this subject is ex- 

 hibited in the tabular view of their composition to which I have already 

 directed your attention (p. 531.) 



One thing, however, of considerable practical value has been recently 

 ascertained — that the oily matter of seeds exists chiefly near their outer 

 surface, — in or immediately under the skin or husk. This fact is shown 

 in the case of wheat, by the following results of the examination of two 

 varieties of this grain, one grown near Durham, the other in France. 

 The result as to the French grain is given by Dumas : — 



PER CENTAdE OF FATTY OIL. 



English. French. 



Fine flour ... 1-5 1-4 



Pollard .... 2-4 4-8 



Boxings .... 3-6 — 



Bran 3-3 5-2 



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

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

 crushed and mixed with their otlier food 1 Might not some cheap varieties of oil also be 

 mixed with their food for the purpose of fattening. 



