CHAPTER III. 



VEGETABLE FOODS. 



Many who have publicly discussed the subject of feed- 

 ing have stoutly asserted that vegetable substances are 

 absolutely unfit for dogs ; and the reason which the most 

 scientific of them have advanced is, that these animals are 

 incapable of digesting or converting into components of 

 their bodies the saccharine and farinaceous matters yielded 

 by such substances. 



While the matters in question are not digested in the 

 stomachs of dogs, but pass down unchanged into the small 

 intestine, experiments have proved that the fluids of the lat- 

 ter transform starch into sugar with the greatest prompti- 

 tude, and that it is then rapidly absorbed ; also, that if a 

 dog is given meat with one of the meals, as oatmeal or 

 Indian meal, abounding in starchy matter, while some of 

 the former remains in his stomach for several hours, the 

 latter immediately begins to pass into the intestine, and 

 the whole of the starch even may have completely disap- 

 peared in an hour's time. 



It is plainly evident therefore that Nature has made 

 provision for the digestion of starchy foods. 



