248 



Food for Cattle. 



Vol. VIII. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Food for Cattle. 



At this time, when the correct principles 

 of farming and feeding, as ascertained by 

 chemical analysis, are a subject of general 

 inquiry, I have thought the following article 

 on "Food for Cattle," would be interest- 

 ing to the readers of the Cabinet. It appears 

 to me that a far greater value has been at- 

 tached to some esculents containing a very 

 large portion of water, such as turnips, beets, 

 carrots, potatoes, &c., than they deserve ; 

 whilst others, in which the proportions of 

 organic matter are very great, such as peas, 

 beans, oats, barley, wheat-bran, &c., have 

 been too much neglected. It is quite con 

 trary to the received opinion, that 100 lbs. 

 of the skin of wheat, — bran — is as valuable 

 for cattle food, as 100 lbs. of almost any arti- 

 cle that can be given to them. But this 

 may account for the observation that we 

 have often heard made, that " miller's horses 

 and hogs are always fat," as they are gene- 

 rally fed liberally on wheat-ofFal. J. L. 



Milverton, First month 12th, 1844. 



Extracted from Dr. Playfair's Lecture, de- 

 livered to the members of the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society, in December last. 



The food of cattle is of two kinds, azotized 

 and unazotizcd, with or without nitrogen 

 The following table gives the analysis of 

 various kinds of food of cattle in their fresh 

 state : 



A glance at this table would enable a 

 person to estimate the value of the articles 

 as diet. Thus every 100 tons of turnips 

 contained 90 tons of water. But the value 

 of inorganic and organic matters which 

 these foods contained, differed. Thus Mr. 

 Rham states, that 100 lbs. of hay were equal 

 to 339 lbs. of mangold-wurtzel. It would be 

 seen that that quantity of hay contained 76 

 lbs. of organic matter, whilst the mangold 

 wurtzel contained only 34 lbs. 



One result on feeding animals on foods 

 containing much water is, that the water 



abstracts from the animal a large quantity 

 of heat, for the purpose of bringing it up to 

 the temperature of the body, and in this way 

 a loss of material took place. The mode 

 proposed by Sir Humphrey Davy, of ascer- 

 taining the nutritive properties of plants, by 

 mechanically separating the gluten, is un- 

 susceptible of accuracy. The more accu- 

 rate way is, to ascertain the quantity of ni- 

 trogen, which being multiplied by 6.2, will 

 give the quantity of albumen contained in 

 any given specimen of foo(]. 



The following table shows the equivalent 

 value of several kinds of food, with refer- 

 ence to the formation of muscle and fat, the 

 albumen indicating the muscle-forming prin- 

 ciple : 



The analyses in this table, are partly the 

 result of Dr. Playfair's, and Boussingault's 

 analyses. The albumen series indicates the 

 flesh-forming principles, and the unazotized 

 series indicates the fat-forming principles. 

 By comparing this table with the former, it 

 will be at once seen which foods contain not 

 only the greatest quantity of organic matter, 

 but what proportion of this organic matter is 

 nutritive, and which is fattening, or that 

 which furnishes combustible material. In 

 cold weather, those foods shoifld be given 

 which contain the larger proportion of un- 

 azotized matters, in order to sustain the heat 

 of the body. Thus it will be seen, that po- 

 tatoes are good for fattening, but bad for 

 fleshening. Linseed cake contains a great 

 deal of fattening matter, and but little nutri- 

 tive matter; hence barley-meal, which con- 

 tains a good deal of albumen, may be advan- 

 tageously mixed with it. 



Dumas, a French chemist, states that the 

 principles of fat exist in vegetables, as in 

 hay and maize; and that, like albumen, it is 

 deposited in the tissues unchanged. But 

 Leibig regards fat as transformed sugar, 

 starch, gum, &c., which has undergone a 

 change in the process of digestion. This is 

 why linseed cake is fattening; all the oil is 

 squeezed out of the seed, but the seed-coat — 

 which contains a great deal of gum and the 

 starch of the seed — is left, and these are 

 fattening principles. 



