126 DEEDING ANIMALS. 



CHAPTEK V. 



PRINCIPLES OF ALIMENTATION. 



THE true and complete office performed by the food in 

 the growth and development of our domestic animals has 

 been quite too little considered by many even of our 

 advanced feeders. Let us instance intelligent Short-horn 

 breeders. 



Much has justly been written in praise of the Short-horn 

 as the highest and most perfect bovine type of human food; 

 but, we fear that in the minds of many, too great faith is 

 placed upon the constitution and blood of the animal, and 

 too little upon the process by which this perfected type has 

 been produced. They seem to think that this perfected 

 animal has power to change the elements of its food, and 

 add an aroma and flavor to its flesh which was not contained 

 in its food. At the meeting of the National Short-horn 

 Breeders' Convention, at Cincinnati, a learned member, in 

 an elaborate paper, proposed, as the best means of improving 

 the flavor and quality of the flesh of each breeding animal, 

 to slaughter some of its offshoots discarding those whose 

 flesh is not of the desired quality, and he made no suggestion 

 of the necessity of appropriate food as affecting flavor; but 

 he instanced the antelope and other wild animals as possess- 

 ing the same flavor of flesh to-day as a thousand years ago; 

 from which we suppose that he regarded the flavor of the 

 flesh as dependent entirely upon the constitution and fixed 

 character of the animal, and not upon the food. But, 

 what would be the effect of domesticating the antelope, and 

 changing its food from that of the broad range and great 



