288 Transactions of the Amertcan Institute. 



among all nations as appropriate human food. Grass, fresh or dried, 

 is her natural pabulum. Cereals furnish starch, but the coarse cover- 

 ings of grass seeds and grain carry products into their systems indis- 

 pensable to the perfection of their natures. Concentrated feed is not 

 suitable for them. Their internal organisms are the best mills for 

 them, since the stimulus of distension is essential in their organic 

 economy. A full abdomen is a sign of perfect health, made so by 

 their ordinary habits of life. 



Indian meal, peas, and especially crushed beans, of which they 

 become exceedingly fond, contain a large percentage of casein, are 

 each and all of them excellent, fed out with discretion. Alternati^•es 

 in diet, in a state of domestication, however, it should be remembered, 

 is of the first importance in maintaining their health. Succulent 

 roots abounding in sugar, such as beets, carrots, etc., are generally 

 relished. Potatoes furnish starch, which is converted into glucase, a 

 sugar paste, after it leaves one of the stomachs. Turnips, squashes, 

 pumpkins and fresh cornstalks, which furnish a large quantity of 

 sweet juice, when fresh are admirable. All of them should be freed 

 from grit. Their teeth are injured by whatever carries impurities of 

 that sort adhering to it. Warm slops produce caries if persisted in 

 for a season or two. Scrofulous sores sometimes are produced in that 

 manner, it is supposed, and scabby patches, denuded of hair. All 

 juicy garden plants are eagerly sought by milch cows, which furnish 

 saccharine matter. Those which they reject must be useless. Feed 

 them occasionally with sugar. 



When the perpendicular septa of bone between the plates of 

 enamel are injured by warm semi-fluid food, cows experience pain, 

 indicated by extending the neck, shaking the head and leaving the 

 vessel from which they are feeding, with its contents, although 

 craving nourishment at the moment. Cows are used for burden in 

 common with bulls in many semi-barbarous countries. A farmer by 

 the name of Thatcher rode a cow to market of Stockport, in England, 

 during the American revolution, to bring contempt upon Mr. Pitt's 

 unpopular tax on horses for carrying on the controversy. Barbarous 

 operations called spaying, are occasionally performed on them. It 

 prevents them from having calves, with an idea of keeping them 

 perpetually in milk. They can Ije brought to milk without having a 

 calf, but it is an unnatural process, not to be encouraged. 



•Maiming cows is a custom only practiced in Ch)-istian countries, 

 and belongs to that catalogue of cruelties we practice, but which nei- 



