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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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and animal nutrition, that we can not always arrive 

 at the exact truth of the matter sought. There is * 

 a wonderful difference in different animals, — man 

 included — to take on fat and muscle. Everything , 

 Daniel Lambert ate, seemed to all run to fat, till 

 he became a miniature mountain of human fat. 

 The assimilating vessels of others are so constituted 

 that they draw largely from the nitrogenous pro- 

 perties of their food, and take on muscle, or lean 

 meat, to the almost entire exclusion of fat. Others, 

 again, wiU neither take on "fat or lean." You 

 might as well attempt to fatten a pair of steelyards 

 as one of them. Calvin Edson, the "Vermont 

 living skeleton," who was exhibited about the 

 country a few years ago, at so much " a sight," was 

 of this last named class. 



If a bushel of peas contains three times as much 

 nitrogen as the same quantity of corn, and, if all 

 the nitrogen of the peas could be assimilated, then 

 would it not produce three times as much muscle 

 and other nitrogenous animal substances as the 

 corn ? But, you say the assimilation of nitrogen 

 it in proportion to the available carbonaceous 

 substances. This may all be correct, and if so, 

 then would it not be profitable to feed potatoe, or 

 other cheap starch, with the pea-meal ? Starch is 

 soluble in boiling water, and then mixed with the 

 pea-meal in the right proportions, a much larger ' 

 amount of the nitrogen would be assimilated. The 

 above, however, is a mere suggestion. 



Warner, liT. K, L. BARTLETT. 



B£ST FOOD FOR LAYING FOWLS. 



" What kind of food will cause hens to lay the 

 most eggs?" is a question much easier asked than 

 answered. It will, we fear, never be decided. 

 Some say feed oats ; others barley, buckwheat, etc. ; 

 but we say that it is a judicious rotation of feeding 

 that produces the best results. No one kind of 

 food will make hens lay well, unless they are pro- 

 vided with the requisite concomitants, such as 

 fresh meat, when worms and insects are not to be 

 had ; charcoal and calcareous matter, such as broken 

 bones, oyster shells, effete lime or old lime mortar, 

 to assist nature in forming the shell of the ^^^.^ all 

 of which are found in a wide range, without our 

 especial attention, or at least enough to cause a 

 hen to lay her maximum of eggs. Broom-corn seed 

 is a good grain to feed to fowls, but they will not 

 eat it in its whole state with that avidity with 

 which they will eat other grains ; but by crushing 

 or grinding, it is' highly relished by fowls, but should 

 be fed sparingly. 



No animals are easier kept than fowls. No kind 

 of food comes amiss to them. They obtain their 

 living promiscuously, and pick up everything that 

 can be made use of as food in the farm-yard ; even 

 the worms, grubs, and bugs give them tlie most 

 nutritious food; and it has been satisfactorily proved 

 that there is no substitute for potatoes, if they are 

 boiled and mashed, and mixed with a little corn- 

 meal, shorts, or even bran, as a promoter of laying. 

 The more varied the food tlie better. As to green 

 food, they are partial to lettuce, cabbage, endive, 

 spinach, chickweed, grass-seeds, etc. ; and if insect- 

 ivorous food is wanted, there is nothing, perhaps, 

 so easily obtained at almost any season than this, 

 by the following method : Procure a deep crock, 

 into which put some wheat bran, and cover it with 



Alfalfa, like the Canada thistle, white weed, and 

 other similar pests of the farm, spread itself " all 

 over creation." Is there any reason why this 

 clover can not be successfully grown in the South- 

 ern States, and on the deep prairie, and other rich 

 soils of the West ? It seems to me, this plant is 

 worthy of extensive experiment in the sections of 

 country above named. 



Feeding Farm Stock is the leader in the Decem- 

 ber number of the Genesee Farmer^ and it contains 

 a fund of scientitic and practical information for us 

 faritievs\ but there are a few statements in it I 

 beg leave to comment upon, — such as the state- 

 ment, that "the nitrogenous substances of vegeta- 

 bles are precisely the same in composition as the 

 muscle or flesh of animals; and it is supposed that 

 the nitrogenous substances of vegetables are con- 

 xerted into Jiesh without decomposition." 



Will you please inform us by Avhat process the 

 gluten of wheat, corn, barley, oats, and the legumin 

 of peas and beans, are changed into beef-steak, 

 without first undergoing decomposition? or, how 

 vegetable albumen, found in cabbage, turnips, roots, 

 and other forage plants,- becomes the white of an 

 egg, or the casein of milk, without first having been 

 eubjected to the processes of decomposition, recora- 

 position, and a complete rearrangement of the 

 molecular particles of the constituents of the vege- 

 table albumen ? Starch, gum, and sugar can all be 

 changed into fat, for these substances are all chem- 

 ically alike ; that is, thej all have nearly the same 

 proportions of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, (and 

 no nitrogen). By slight differences in the combi- 

 nation of these elements, they form the different 

 substances, viz : starch, gum, sugar and fat. Starch, 

 in the laboratory of a chemist, can readily be 

 changed into gum, and then sugar, but to convert 

 tlie sugar into fat, requires the more efficient agency 

 of animal chemistry. And is not the starch, sugar 

 and gum decomposed in the laboratory of the 

 animal before they become tallow, lard, or oil? 

 These questions are simply asked for the purpose of 

 eliciting correct information, such as we tillers of 

 the soil can understand.* 



Bran may, for aught I know, be more nutritions 

 than the finest flour, but would not bread made 

 from unbolted wheaten meal, be more healthy and 

 nutritive than that made from the bran alone, or 

 from the finest flour ? But, as Graham bread is 

 not a general favorite, we predict that, for some 

 time to come, bipeds will eat the fine flour, and 

 quadrupeds the bran. 



Pigs will thrive well on skimmed milk, but they 

 will fatten faster if fed on unskimmed. The tran- 

 sition from cream to hog's lard is an easy one, 

 when liberally fed to a healthy pig, especially if it 

 is of the Chinese or Suffolk breed. 



A judicious rotation of crops, in the long run, 

 will prove more profitable than the haphazard 

 course pursued by too many farmers. 



The skilful chemist can accurately determine the 

 actual and relative proportions of carbonaceous 

 and nitrogenous substances in corn, wheat, peas, 

 beans, etc.. But the analyses of the chemist, and 

 the conclusions drawn from them, are not always 

 fully sustained when tested by actual experiment. 

 There are so many unseen and unknown contin- 

 gencies connected with our experiments in vegetable 



* Bee JotmetOQ'B Agricultural Chemistry, p. 690. 



