ANIMAL NUTRITION. 285 



ming that is required afterward, which amount* to 

 one cent and a quarter for each perch of distance : 

 the quarter may be thrown off if the clipping is nev- 

 er omitted in due time, as this lessens the labour a 

 rule that will apply through every operation in hus- 

 bandry, and should never be forgotten while twen*y- 

 five per cent, is saved, and often fifty. 



ANIMAL NUTRITION. 



Until within a very few years, little attention seems 

 to have been paid to the subject of animal nutrition : 

 the quantity or kind of food most suitable for this 

 purpose was mostly overlooked ; and if life were 

 supported, no questions were asked as to the why 

 and the wherefore. So long as the population of 

 the world remained few in number compared with 

 the acres from which subsistence was to be drawn, 

 there was, indeed, little use in inquiries of the kind ; 

 then, as now in the United States, or on this Conti- 

 nent generally, a supply of food of some kind was 

 usually certain. Now and then, years of famine in 

 particular sections might occur ; for in those times, 

 when the means of intercourse were so limited, the 

 inhabitants of one country might be starving, while 

 those at a distance of a few hundred miles were 

 rioting in abundance ; but these calamities were soon 

 forgotten in the succeeding plenty, and led to no 

 valuable investigation as to the nature of food or 

 nutrition. The population fared more nearly alike 

 in former times than at present, so far as food was 

 concerned ; it was bulky and hearty, and, if it pro- 

 duced disease, it was of a different kind from that 

 which now assails the modern omniverous eater and 

 drinker, and in all cases was decidedly the same. In 

 these days, the differences in mankind made by rank 

 or wealth are scarcely more deeply marked than 

 those observable between the diseases of the rich 

 and the poor : differences, in the main, to be attribu- 

 ted to the nature of their diet and its effects on the 

 animal system. 



