2 The Feeding of Animals 



those specialized capacities of growth, draft, speed or 

 production which now render these animals so very 

 valuable for the service and sustenance of the human 

 family. 



The qualities developed were those demanded by the 

 necessities of existence without reference to utility as 

 measured by the needs of a higher form of life. The 

 fiber of the body must possess endurance, and it mat- 

 tered little whether or not the muscle could furnish a 

 juicy steak. The brute mother must defend her young 

 and supply it with milk, and this being accomplished, her 

 maternal functions ceased. She was neither so endowed 

 that she could open the fountains of her life to feed 

 generously a not too grateful master, nor so submissive 

 that she would. The wild horse must be fleet and en- 

 during that he might escape the enemy, but not that 

 he might bear heavy burdens or win a contest in the 

 prescribed form of the race- track. 



In the lapse of centuries there have been many 

 changes in the relation of man to the animal creation. 

 Bird and beast in various forms have come to minister 

 to man's wants, and in their present domesticated con- 

 dition are, in their turn, utterly dependent upon him 

 for the food and shelter which are necessary to their 

 physical welfare, or even existence. It is not too much 

 to assert that the domestic animal, in the artificial en- 

 vironment imposed upon it, is entirely at man's mercy, 

 even in the development of those attributes and char- 

 acteristics which otherwise would be determined by the 

 demands of an unaided warfare with nature. The juicy 

 sirloin of the shorthorn, the almost abnormal milk 



