476 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



started into flower, add much less than before to the weight of 

 fattening stock. 



• The production of manure is an object of equal importance with 

 the production of milk or the fattening of stock. The quantity 

 of manure depends upon the quantity of food necessary to sustain 

 the animal, with the exception of the carbon, which escapes from 

 the lungs in the shape of carbonic acid; nearly the whole of the 

 food which sustains the body is supposed to be rejected in the 

 form of excrement. The quality of the manure depends entirely 

 upon the kind of food given to an animal, and the purpose for 

 which it is fed. A full grown animal which does not increase in 

 weight, returns in its excretions nearly all that it eats. 



With the fattening animal it is different, the food must sustain, 

 and at the same time form additional fat. As fattening cattle are 

 fed corn, oil cake, &c., besides their ordinary food, their manure is 

 much richer than other stock differently fed. You all know of cer- 

 tain old pastures that time out of mind have been celebrated for 

 their fattening qualities, and although no manure has been arti- 

 ficially placed upon them, still they never become less valuable. 

 The reason is that full groAvn stock have been turned upon them 

 annually, that have already their full supply of bone and a suffi- 

 cient quantity of muscle, they consequently only extract fat from 

 grass they eat, and return to the soil phosphate of lime, saline 

 matters and nitrogen, and thus they are only indebted to the 

 land for fat, and as the atmosphere supplies this matter to the 

 grass, the land has not been robbed of anything, and continues 

 fertile. 



Suppose you were to place milch cows upon such a pasture, 

 they would exhaust the food that passed through their digestive 

 organs, of the phosphates, salts, gluten and starch, and transform 

 them into milk, the consequence would be rapid sterility. All 

 the varieties of food we feed our stock contain a greater or less 

 proportion of three different classes of chemical substances — an 

 organic substance containing nitrogen, an organic substance con- 

 taining no nitrogen, and an inorganic substance. Thus, 



1st. In the seeds of the corn plants — wheat, oats, &c. — the pre- 

 dominant ingredient is starch, in connection with gluten, and a 

 small quantity of phosphate of potash and magnesia. 



2d. In the seeds of leguminous plants — the pea, the bean, 

 &e. — starch is still the predominating ingredient, connected with 

 legumina and a large portion of inorganic matter, in which phos- 

 phate of lime abounds. 



