488 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the animal cannot be built up and supported. It is well to 

 remember, that nature has so formed the substance of the mus- 

 cles in the food fed to our animals, that the stomach is only com- 

 pelled to select the matters required for different parts of the 

 body, and despatch them thereto. The plant compounds and 

 prepares the phosphate of lime, phosphate of magnesia, common 

 salt, albumen, gluten, fat and casein, which it extracts from the 

 soil, by the commands of nature, to divide the labor of building 

 up living bodies, between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 



The object nature has in furnishing animals with fat, is to 

 lubricate tlie joints, separate the muscles, protect the internal 

 viscera, make the skin flexible and soft, fill up hollows, protect 

 the bones from outward injury, and make all parts plump and 

 round. And when it accumulates largely, it may be considered 

 an eifort of nature, to lay in a store of food in times of abundance, 

 to be made available when seasons of scarcity arrive. I have ou 

 several occasions stated, that I could convert a full blooded calf, 

 either Ayrshire or Durham, that would if left to nature take after 

 the parents, and present to the eye when born all that the breeder 

 could desire, into a coarse, ill-formed, badly limbed, raw-boned 

 creature, by the quality and quantity of food administered to the 

 mother, not only to sustain her animal economy, but at the same 

 time to build up her unborn calf. A cow to sustain herself alone, 

 will eat, if permitted so to do, more than a fifth of her weight in 

 turnips in twenty-four hours, or one fifty-fifth of her weight of 

 hay. To nourish the calf, then, an additional quantity of food 

 must be administered daily, as pregnancy progresses, calculated 

 to grow the bones and muscles of the calf. It must contain starch 

 and sugar, as the mother not only breathes for herself, but her 

 young, more oxygen is taken in and more carbon exhaled. To 

 supply the carbon, farinaceous food must be daily given. To 

 yield twenty-two quarts of milk, producing twenty-four ounces 

 of butter, a cow would be compelled to eat one hundred pounds 

 of hay, as that quantity contains twenty-four ounces of fatty mat- 

 ter. A horse fed-on corn cannot do as much work as a horse fed 

 on oats, because the corn developes his adipose tissues, and th© 

 oats his muscular. 



