426 FATTY ELEMENTS Cf FOOD, AND ON FATTENING. 



gether conclusive, and from which it follows, that two Hampshire 

 hogs which, having consumed 66 lbs. of gluten, and upwards of 30| 

 lbs. of starch, had only gained 17| lbs. ; while other two animals of 

 the same breed, having been fed with 99 lbs. of the flesh of sheeps' 

 heads, containing from 12 to 15 per cent, of fat, had gained 35 lbs. 

 Yet, judging from elementary analysis, these two rations were almost 

 identical ; they contained the same quantity of dry nutritious matter. 

 The first ration contained 26.4 lbs. of dry gluten, and 30.4 lbs. of 

 starch ; the second contained 20.9 lbs. of dry flesh, and 15.4 lbs. of 

 fat. The quantities of carbon and azote were, therefore, a little 

 higher in the vegetable than in the animal ration ; but they differed 

 notably in this, that the latter contained an equivalent of fat for the 

 equivalent of starch contained in the former. 



In a second experiment, four hogs, fed upon boiled potatoes, car- 

 rots, and a little rye, gained 117.7 lbs. ; while other four animals, 

 of the same age, and in the same conditions, but fed upon sheeps' 

 heads, gained as many as 226.6 lbs. 



In the course of these experiments, M. Payen was struck with 

 this circumstance, that the increase in weight of an animal that is fat- 

 tening being represented by 50 per cent, of water, 33.3 of fat, and 

 16.6 of azotized matter, the conviction is forced upon us that he ac- 

 tually fixes the greater proportion of the fat of his food in the cellu- 

 lar tissue of his body. The first hogs, for example, had eaten 14.74 

 lbs. of fat, and had gained 11.44 lbs. in weight; the four last re- 

 ferred to had had 18.48 of grease, and had increased 14.74 lbs. in 

 weight. 



It has now been the practice for several years, in various places, 

 to maintain hogs in considerable numbers upon muscular flesh, horse- 

 flesh; and it has been ascertained that the article, if extremely 

 lean, though it keeps the animals in good heart and condition, though 

 they grow and thrive on it, yet they will not fatten. When they are 

 to be got ready for the butcher, they must, in addition, be put upon 

 a course that is known to be proper to fatten them. 



The scientific question of fattening having, of late years, attracted 

 very general attention, the opinions which have now been announced 

 have been very actively contested. Among other arguments, the 

 general freedom from fat of the bodies of carnivorous animals, and 

 the usual fat state of those of the herbivorous races, has been cited. 

 Whales have even mistakenly been included in the list of fat vege- 

 table feeders ; but it is known to all naturalists, that the great ma- 

 jority of the whale tribes, the whole of those that inhabit the northern 

 seas, are carnivorous. And, indeed, the mention of this fact leads 

 me to revert to one of the most curious problems in the physics of 

 the globe — that, to wit, presented by the vast amount of animal life 

 amidst the waters of the ocean, and its support by a quantity of 

 vegetables which to us appear altogether inadequate to such an end. 

 The beautiful researches of M. Morren, however, seem calculated 

 to throw some light on this interesting subject, — that inquirer having 

 shown that certain animalcules possess the faculty of decomposing 

 carbonic acid in the same way as vegetables ; and it is probably ia 



