1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



7T 



WHY THE CAT DOH'T SWEAT. 



"Pa, does the cat ever sweat ?" 



"No, my son." 



"Why, pa?" 



True enough, thought I, why ? The carnivorous 

 animals have no persj)iratory ])ores, as it is said ; 

 but this only helps over the first why, and we are 

 stopped again by the next one. If it had been ne- 

 cessary for them to sweat, God would have given 

 them an apparatus, as he has given to horses and 

 cows in their skinf;. 



"I think," said I, "it is because they eat so much 

 lean meat." 



Strange as it may seem, all animals that perspire 

 get into a sweet to keep cool. AVhen an ounce of 

 water is converted into vapor, whether it has been 

 sprinkled on the floor on a summer's day, or put on 

 the fire in a green forestick, or spread on the sur- 

 face of the earth in a dew, or exists in the form of 

 perspirations on our bodies, or exhales invisible 

 from our skin, or comes out of our lungs in breath, 

 that ounce of water appropriates to itself, and de- 

 stroys for all other purposet^, a certain amount of 

 heat. If animals sweat to get rid of excess of 

 warmth, is there any connection between this pro- 

 cess and the cliaracter of their food ? 



If we designate the surplus carbonaceous matter 

 in the food, heat, and the nitrogenized matter, mo- 

 tion, we should have in beef, 1 lb. motion to 3 lbs. 

 heat; in oats, 1 lb. motion to 15 lbs. heat ; in hay, 

 1 lb. motion to 18 lbs. heat. 



Now, observation shows that animals cannot use 

 of the one of these elements, without disposing, in 

 some way, of a corresponding amount of the othei*. 

 Stage horses hard driven, if the weather be warm, 

 grow poor — in common terms, they sweat off their 

 fat. It is equally true, too, that animals in low flesh 

 are weak. 



As the food of herbivoi'ous animals contains five 

 or six times the amount of heat-producing mate- 

 rials — starch, gum and sugar — that exists in animal 

 flesh, so that class are more sluggish in their hab- 

 its than carniverous animals. Lions and tigers, 

 though they have been consigned to a warm lati- 

 tude, and covered in furs by a kind Providence, 

 must roam to keep warm. It is for these natural 

 reasons that they cannot brook the condition of cap- 

 tivity. Poetry has nothing to do with their rest- 

 less habits when in cages ; they are chilly from the 

 inaction of the domestic condition. 



Dogs and cats are very sensitive to ' cold. How 

 Carlo shivers when he comes out of his house on a 

 cold morning; and whines at the door; and puss, 

 notwithstanding her full dress, never lies down to 

 nap in a cold place. Neither of them can keep 

 still in the cold. If they were to be stabled Uke 

 cattle, and could be kept as still, it would kill them 

 in a few days. 



Although the horse, when fed on hay, has but 

 one pound of motion to dispense of for every eigh- 

 teen pounds of heat, he must work that oft' in or- 

 der to enjoy warmth. After drinking on a winter 

 morning, when he finds himself shivering, he pran- 

 ces and kicks for the fun of the thing, and by dis- 

 posing of a little motion, is enabled, so to speak, to 

 use eighteen times its weight of heat. How he 

 snorts the blasts out of his furnaces ! 



When we notice the slight difference that is 

 shown in this table between the analysis of hay and 

 oats, and when we reflect on the diSerence in the 



performance of a hay-fed horse and one fed on 



o-rain, and when we compare these two items with 

 the composition of flesh, Ave are led to conclude 

 that horses could never be brought to feed on beef 

 — and that we must put the flesh-eating horses of 

 mythology in the same stall with centaurs. 



But, on the other hand, if a horse is fed high, 

 and is confined in cold weather, and the carbon of 

 his food is used to keep him warm, the nitrogen 

 will accumulate somewhere. He will get the gout 

 from high living. Let him have exercise every 

 day, if it is only oy running in the yard. 



The horse sweats because there is so much starch, 

 gum and sugar in his food ; while the cat does not 

 because there is so little in hers. The starch, gum 

 and sugar in the grass go to make fat with grass- 

 eating animals ; the cat gets but little flit in her 

 food, and so God gave her furs, and lets her wear 

 them all summer to keep her warm. — Country 

 Gentleman. 



MILK, BREAD AND BUTTEE TREES. 



We had heard several weeks before of a tree, the 

 sap of which is a nourishing milk. It is called "the 

 cow tree," and we were assured that the negroes of 

 the farm, who drink plentifully of this vegetable 

 milk, consider it a wholesome aliment. All the 

 milky juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and more 

 or less poisonous, this account appeared to us very 

 extraordinary ; but we found by experience, during 

 our stay at Barbula, that the virtues of this tree 

 had not been exaggerated. This fine tree rises like 

 the broad-leaved star-apple. Its oblong and point- 

 ed leaves, rough and alternate, are marked by later- 

 al ribs, prominent at the lower surface and parallel. 

 Some of them are ten inches long. We did not 

 see the flower; the fruit is somewhat fleshy, and 

 contains one and sometimes two nuts. When in- 

 cisions are made in the trunk of this tree, it yields 

 abundance of glutinous milk, tolerably thick, devoid 

 of all acridity, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. 

 It was offered to us in the shell of a calabash. We 

 drank considerable quantities of it in the evening 

 before we went to bed, and very early in the morn- 

 ing, without feeling the least injurious effect. The 

 viscocity of this milk alone renders it a little dis- 

 agreeable. The negroes and the free people who 

 work on the plantations drink it, dipping into it 

 their bread of maize of cassava. The overseer of 

 the form told us that the negroes grow seuvsibly fat- 

 ter during the season when the palo de vaca fur- 

 nishes them with most milk. This juice,_ exposed 

 to the air, presents at its surface (perhaps in conse- 

 quence of the absorption of the atmospheric oxy- 

 gen) membranes of a strongly animalized substance, 

 yellow, somewhat resembling cheese. These mem- 

 branes, separated from the rest of the more aque- 

 ous liquid, are elastic, almost hke caoutchouc ; but 

 they undergo the same phenomena of putrefaction 

 as gelatine. The people call the coagulum, that 

 se])arates by the contact of the air, cheese. The 

 coagulum grows sour in the space of five or six 

 days. Amidst the great number of curious phe- 

 nomena which I have observed in tb.e course of my 

 travels, I confess there are few that have made sa 

 powerful an im])ression on me as the aspect of the 

 cow tree. Whatever relates to milk or to corn, in- 

 spires an interest which is not merely that of the 

 physical knowledge of thmgs, but is connected with 

 another order of ideas and sentiments. We can 



