396 FOOD AND FEEDING. 



The only mode of ascertaining the favorable or unfavorable influ- 

 ence of any particular system of diet or regimen upon animals, ia 

 by weighing them. In ref rd to full-grown animals performing 

 regular work, such as cart a;.d plough horses, and to milch-kine, the 

 allowance ought to be such as will maintain them at the same or 

 nearly the same weight. Any thing like stinting is immediately 

 followed by loss of flesh and of weight, of strength and spirit, in the 

 animal. The allowance being continued the same, similar effects 

 will follow any increase of work, any exaction of unusual eifort on 

 the part of the animal. An essential condition, therefore, in all 

 experiments on the due dieting or feeding of animals, is, that they be 

 performed under precisely similar conditions of labor. Young ani- 

 mals receiving a sufficiency of wholesome food, increase from day 

 to day by a quantity which we shall have occasion immex.iately to 

 mention ; and all changes of regimen are followed at once by notable 

 variations in the ratio of the growth ; if the new regimen be less 

 nutritious than that which went before it, the balance immediately 

 proclaims the fact. 



Cattle put up to fatten are always supplied with a superfluity of 

 fodder ; the excess may be regarded as an addition to the quantity 

 requisite to maintain them in health and strength. The increase in 

 the weight of an animal is often so great within a given time, as to 

 be very appreciable by weighings made even at very close intervals ; 

 the balance also shows us that the rate of increase varies at different 

 periods of the interval during which the fattening is going on. An 

 animal put up to fatten for the butcher, is not the best subject for 

 coming to conclusions upon in regard to the nutritive value of dif- 

 ferent articles of sustenance ; still it is useful, in a practical point 

 of view, to determine the influence of this and of that course of 

 regimen on the production of fat. Any misapplication of nutritive 

 equivalents is speedily proclaimed by the animal's losing weight, 

 instead of maintaining or gaining upon the amount to which it had 

 attained. 



When the quantity of fodder has been ascertained which an ani- 

 mal ought to have in the twenty-four hours to maintain it in full 

 health and vigor, or that may be necessary to enable it to lay on 

 additional flesh and fat, it is to be weighed, and the article or mix- 

 ture of articles which it is the business of the experimenter to try, 

 is to be given in part or in whole. After the lapse of a certain 

 time the animal is weighed again, and the weight upon this occasion 

 enables us to say whether the new or amended ration is superior, 

 equal, or inferior, to that which had preceded it. Such is the pro- 

 cedure generally followed : but in putting it in practice myself, I 

 saw that it was liable to lead to rather serious mistakes, which I 

 then used every effort to diminish or to nullify in the experiments 

 which I undertook on the keep of horses — experiments which I 

 ^hink interesting enough to deserve being particularly related. 



In a considerable number of observations with which I had be- 



>me familiar, I saw that the course had not always been continued 

 4r a sufficierJ length of time ; so that changes which were the 



