96 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE BUEEDS. 



assimilate with ease, food which to the sons of sloth 

 would prove a poison. So far as these wants have 

 been supplied, the attempt of Bakewell has been attend- 

 ed with the happiest results, as he and his disciples 

 have placed by their well-spent exertions much good 

 food within the reach of the poorer classes, which they 

 must otherwise have gone without ; while in many 

 instances it has driven bacon from the market, being a 

 cheaper and more palatable commodity, which cannot 

 but contribute to the health of the people, seeing the 

 continued use of salted meat is calculated to injure the 

 body, and render it liable to many diseases. Marshall 

 remarks, that fat, like charity, covers a multitude of 

 faults : and he is right, for an ill-shaped animal if well 

 fed, has all its angles speedily effaced, and if its ugli- 

 ness has not amounted to absolute deformity, it acquires 

 that rotundity of contour so pleasing to the eye, and so 

 apt to mislead us. 



The rapidity is various with which animals take 

 on fat, much depending on hereditary predisposition, 

 and the nature of the food ; and much also on the 

 state of the atmosphere, and quiet habits ; a moist and 

 rather warm air tending greatly to the advancement 

 of the process, some birds becoming fat in twenty-four 

 hours of wet weather. Children that have been ema- 

 ciated by diseases often resume their original plump 

 condition in a few days ; and animals that have been 

 famished, as hogs, afterwards fatten very rapidly. 

 Moderate and repeated bleedings, mild farinaceous diet, 

 and emasculation conjoined, tend to the repletion of the 

 body, and to the speedy deposition of fat ; yet it would 

 appear, that when acquired in this rapid manner, it 



