Proceebings of the Farmer^ Club. I95 



into nutriment at its leisure. It makes balls of its food by chew- 

 ing it, then one after another lets it down into the paunch, till this 

 organ may be compared to a basket filled with eggs. At night, on 

 lying down, the process of using the food commences. These 

 animals like company, for they are social. A cow will not give as 

 much milk when solitary as when associated with her kind. Diges- 

 tion now commences with a reversed action. One of the balls 

 comes back into the mouth, when it is chewed over and made into 

 a smaller ball, when it is discharged into a second stomach by 

 another passage, the entrance to which is under the animal's con.- 

 trol. The second stomach is composed of that substance of which 

 tripe is made. There a fluid is secreted and mixed with the food 

 so received, and becomes of a yellow color. Here the ox has no 

 further control of the food. Thence the food drops into the third 

 stomach, which is smaller, and here the food is mixed with a white 

 fluid, where it drops into the fourth stomach in a yellow, creamy 

 stream. In this stomach it becomes arranged in layers, and by the 

 secretion of jmother and peculiar fluid it is changed into curd. In 

 calves this stomach is used for rennet in making cheese. In the 

 earlier ages of the world, when habits were simple and wants were 

 few, the only cheese used was obtained from this stomach of the 

 animal. But afterward it was found that the material of the stomach 

 itself would curdle milk, and hence came the manufacture of 

 cheese. Thus we see, the food of these animals must go through 

 the various wonderful processes described, and finally be changed 

 into curd, before it is fitted to furnish nutriment. Balls of hair 

 sometimes are found in the first stomach, from one inch to four 

 inches in diameter. In the spring cattle curry each other, to allay 

 irritation, by licking, and in so doing they cannot get the hair ofi 

 their tongues outward, but are forced to swallow it, when, naturally, 

 it takes the shape of balls. The animal tries to expel it, but the 

 structure of the tongue prevents, when it is swallowed again, and 

 it is kept going to and fro and up and do^\^l many times. Of 

 course, such a foreign substance often will produce disease, which 

 is likely to have many names, and for which medicines totally inef- 

 ficacious are prescribed. It is obvious that at the season named, 

 nothing is more important in the treatment of cattle than to curry 

 them with the curry comb to prevent the formation of these hair 

 balls. It is no economy to feed slops to cows, for the reason that 

 the organ under consideration is for the purpose of digesting 

 grass, and not fluids. 



