CHAPTER IV. 



THE SCIENCE AND AIIT OF FEEDING. 



"The feeding of cattle is the most important part of agri- 

 culture." These words appear in a work on agriculture by 

 that renowned writer and 'excellent farmer, Cicero, who 

 lived two thousand years ago. And we may well believe 

 that he, who was an extensive owner of sheep of the finest 

 quality of the then race of which, our invaluable Merino 

 is a direct descendant, gave due credit to the sheep as being 

 the most valuable of all domestic animals in regard to the 

 right and proper feeding of it. It was not only that the 

 food nourished animals reared on the farm, and so made 

 a profit from the flesh and the fleece, but that in the due 

 course of nature the produce of the land being fed to cattle 

 in which sheep were, and are always, included as one 

 kind of the class of domestic animals not only nourished 

 the animals fed, but left the greater part of it to return to 

 the land to fertilize it and so cause it to return still more 

 crops for feeding more cattle. And if we study carefully 

 the writings of the many ancient authors, poets and prose 

 writers, which are extant, we shall discover that what they 

 did not know of the art and practice of agriculture is of 

 very little account to-day. What we know, which they did 

 not, is simply the inner causes of things which they were 

 well acquainted w r ith, but not the reasons why they 

 were so, which is really all there is in the science of the 

 art and practice. Thus it is that we may learn much that is 

 valuable from these ancient writers, and get, through the 

 details of their practice, invaluable illustrations in regard to 

 the axioms and rules of modern scientific practice in every 

 department of agriculture. 



So important a matter then as the feeding of his flock to 

 the intelligent shepherd, should be studied scientifically, 

 first; and then the rules and suggestions to be derived from 



