No. 144.] 555 



about one-third what a pound of oats are, and about two-fifths 

 what a pound of corn is, as materials for the production of motion, 

 (that is what is technically termed "hard feed.") As the root 

 crops lose most in drying, the balance is more heavily against 

 them in the condition in which feed is commonly used. By al- 

 lowing for the difference in weight of the bushel of those different 

 substances, their relative value by the bushel as " feed," for the 

 production of motion, may be ascertained. 



Taking the potato and the carrot then as representatives of this 

 class of crops, we must come to the conclusion that they can 

 never successfully compete with the grains as a material for the 

 nutrition of muscle. There is not a stage line in the country that 

 could do a weeks work on them. No root-eating animal is of 

 sprightly natural movement. The Irish nation has grown pot- 

 bellied and bow-legged by feeding too much on potatoes, and the 

 root-eating Indians of western America are at the bottom of the 

 scale of humanity, a full grade below the rice-eating Orientals or 

 the fish and worm-eating Polynesians, or the oil-consuming Esqui- 

 maux, and the same law holds true to great extent with indi- 

 vidual animals. Once born, the only difference that can be made 

 in the constitution of an animal is by feeding, and by that exer- 

 cise that appropriates the feed, and a judicious system of manage- 

 ment in these respects may effect wonders. Cassius cried — 



" Upon what meat doth this our Csesar feed, 

 That he is grown so great ?" 



But roots have their uses in the animal economy. We were 

 told two thousand years ago that it was not good for man to 

 live on bread alone, indeed so well established was this natural 

 truth that it was used then as a medium for conveying a moral 

 lesson, though French philosophy claims it for yesterday. The 

 food of animals must be of a mixed nature, in order to meet all 

 their wants, and it must vary in the relative amount of its com- 

 ponent parts with the variation in the habits of life of the animal. 

 The only safe guide to the correct relative quantiti s of different 

 substances is appetite. If a horse is supplied with hay, oats, 

 straw, carrots and Avater in such a way that he may partake of 

 them at his option, he will take different relative quantities of 



