INPLUENCK OF FOOD ON MUTTON. 



91 



are best for the table, though more depends on the 

 ■pasture than the breed" More, in fact, depending on 

 feeding and management, than on the variety of the 

 animal, though this of course is not to' be neglected. 

 A notion has been advanced in this country, that arti- 

 ficial pastures are less nutritious than natural ones, and 

 that the animals which are raised upon them are, con- 

 sequently, of alaxer fibre, and the flesh less wholesome, 

 as well as less savoury. This, I have no doubt, is per- 

 fectly correct, as many diseases may be traced to such 

 improper food, and what is calculated to produce in 

 some cases actual disease, cannot fail to prove at all 

 times capable of retarding the advancement of the 

 animal. These soft succulent pastures appear not to 

 be positively poisonous, but to be negatively so from 

 their deficiency in saline matter ; the rapid growth of 

 the plant preventing the elimination and absorption, 

 of many of these ingredients with which the soil abounds. 

 This is proved by the greater necessity which exists for 

 the use of salt in the food of the herbivorous animals of 

 hot climates, than in that of such as inhabit temperate, 

 or cold latitudes ; vegetation being in the former more 

 rapid in its details, and in certain states of the atmo- 

 sphere hurried in the extreme, while in the latter the 

 process proceeds with that leisure which enables the 

 plant to make good the measure of its constituents, as 

 it increases in size. In many parts of North America 

 it is well known, that, at certain seasons, the wild 

 animals make eagerly for the salt licks ; and, following 

 up this hint, the settlers easily induce their oxen to 

 keep near their dwellings, by serving them periodically 

 with salt. When the wild cattle of South America had 



