186 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



diet than when pursuing a sedentary occupation within doors. 

 "Working cattle also require a larger quantity and a more nutri- 

 tive quality of food than similar animals confined to courts or 

 tied in the stall. Wild animals, and those allowed to roam 

 about, rarely become fat. It has been remarked by Liebig, 

 that cows driven long distances to pasture, unless they get an 

 extra supply of food, yield milk poor in caseine — the materials 

 which would otherwise have formed that constituent of the 

 milk being used in repairing the waste of the muscles and 

 other parts employed in locomotion." 



Professor Playfair, in a lecture delivered before the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, on the application of Physiology to the 

 rearing and feeding of cattle, says : " It is known that the vital 

 forces decrease when the body is exposed to a certain degree 

 of cold ; and when this is sufficiently intense, that they are 

 either suspended or are altogether annihilated. But the chem- 

 ical force, oxygen, is condensed or increased in its power by 

 such agencies, and it therefore now reigns triumphant. Vital- 

 ity (the cause of increase and of sustenance) being removed, 

 chemical affinity (the cause of waste) acts upon those tissues 

 which have been freed from the dominion of vitality, and ef- 

 fects their destruction. Hence it is, that cattle do not fatten 

 so well in cold weather as in hot. The chemical powers being 

 now in the ascendant prevent the increase of mass. We know, 

 also, that the intervention of cold weather in summer either 

 wholly arrests, or greatly retards, the fattening of our cattle. 

 But as the decrease of vitality has been occasioned by a dimi- 

 nution of the temperature of the body, it is obvious that by an 

 elevation of the temperature, vitality would be enabled to re- 

 sume its proper functions. It has been shown that the food of 

 various countries is more or less combustible, according to the 

 temperature of the climate ; and proof was adduced that the 

 amount of the food consumed varied also" according to the 

 temperature. The animal body is a furnace, which must be 

 kept up to a certain heat in all climates. This furnace must, 

 therefore, be supplied with more or less fuel, according to the 

 temperature of the external air. If then, in winter, we wish 

 to retain the vital functions of our cattle in a proper degree of 

 activity, we must keep up the heat of their bodies. This we 

 may do in two ways. We may either add more fuel (food) 



