GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 239 



difficult problems, and do not hesitate to give to 

 the world their unripe results clothed in a scien- 

 tific dressing. In time the valuelessness of their 

 conclusions is recognised, but the distrust that 

 they have sown is not so easily uprooted. 



The practical man, no less than the scientist, 

 whose aim is directed to the laws of nutrition, 

 has to work on a broad basis if he wishes to make 

 clear some of the points which interest him in the 

 feeding of his cattle. He must first of all use a 

 number of animals, in order to get rid of individual 

 peculiarities, and ought to choose ten, even better 

 fifteen or twenty, animals for each section. It is 

 only the continued repetition of an experiment with 

 other animals which will yield a satisfactory answer 

 to the question under examination. 



He who begins a great deal finishes little, and 

 this holds true also with the investigations under 

 consideration. If it were wished, for example, to test 

 ten feeding-stuffs one after another in a continuous 

 experiment it is certain that the results would be of 

 doubtful value, for the condition of the animals 

 would vary according to the kind and quantity 

 of the food used in the experiment. Nobody will 

 suggest that a lean animal behaves as does a fat 

 one when each gets the same food, nor an old animal 

 as a young one. 



Continuous investigations on the same animals 

 in which the food is changed periodically are, 



