Cattle Feed and Digestion. 147 



space for circulation, and for embryonic breeding, as well 

 as an increased extent of surface and size in the beef cuts 

 that are most in demand. 



Size, and the weight it supplies, are also important in 

 draft horses, that move heavy loads forward, with success 

 in proportion to their weight, as well as to their muscular 

 power, their greater weight, in leaning forward, helping to 

 propel or draw the load, at the same time holding the ani- 

 mal firmer to the ground by gravitation, while muscular 

 force, also, is being exerted by contractive motion. 



But a little further as to cattle : — 



Much of the power exerted in digestion is mechanical, 

 or from movements in the muscular parts and organs dur- 

 ing the successive stages of digestion. In the mouth, the 

 supply of salivary juice is not only according to active 

 motion, but also to the size of salivary glands. And the 

 mixing of the saliva with the masticated food is much 

 facilitated by a mixture of divisory or bulky parts in the 

 crude feed. In the stomach it is necessary that the coats 

 of the organ come in contact with the surface of the mass 

 it contains, to keep it revolving by peristaltic motion, thus 

 bringing different parts of the mass, successively, in con- 

 tact with the parts that discharge the gastric juice, the 

 size of the stomach and the extent of its surface discharging 

 this solvent fluid both being increased according to in- 

 crease in bulk of feed, this rule applying up to the natural 

 proportion of bulk to nutriment that is supplied in grass 

 or hay. The same is true of the influence of bulk in main- 

 taining natural size — the size that has been developed by 

 and according to bulk in the natural food — in the small 

 and large intestines or bowels. In fact, natural bulk 

 formed by the proportions of digestible and indigestible 

 food together, is required to maintain the necessary size 

 in all the digestive organs; and bulk in feed has undoubt- 

 edly much influence in continually maintaining size in the 



