166 Oattle Problems. 



the long winter seasons. However much food may be 

 given, the quantity of red or arterial blood is reduced in ex- 

 tent according to the various degrees of reduction in exer- 

 cise, as the crude blood, such as is produced by digestive 

 solution, but not oxygenated, cannot flow in the arteries, 

 and does not therefore nourish the tissues or muscles till 

 after it is completed by breathing. 



Cattle of all breeds and grades, that are active through 

 the entire grazing season, rapidly lose muscle or flesh, par- 

 ticularly in the muscles and parts that are made active by 

 out-door exercise — w/ien they come to be tied up, or con- 

 fined in small yards. The activity of cattle in such cases 

 is reduced 50 per cent, probably, on an average. They 

 develop 30 to 40 per cent less heat in the tissues also, and 

 have a greatly reduced general heat supply, because their 

 activity and breathing, which develop latent heat into 

 active warmth, are together so much reduced during such 

 periods of close confinement. 



All cattle that are much restricted in their natural and 

 necessary activity,* lose muscle in a certain and large de- 

 gree, corresponding with their reduced exercise, whether 

 the reduced activity be compulsory, or results from in- 

 creased tenderness, or from any other cause creating dis- 

 inclination for, or preventing active motion. 



The reduction of muscle in fattening cattle, when pro- - 

 hibited from exercise, is very considerable in extent, prob- 

 ably amounting to 30 per cent reduction or waste of their 

 muscular flesh, and to some extent there is waste from fatty 

 degeneration also. 



Probably some 15,000,000, or nearly half the number of 

 cattle in the American States and Territories, are raised 

 East, but including the banks of the Mississippi River. 



*Iimclion eoiitnivcnes the natural use of the locomotive parte of the consti- 

 tution, and is therefore adverse to health. "As bodily vigor remulte only 

 from active and well-regulated exerciec, the absence of such exercise must 

 entail bodily debility."— IIuxley'B Fhysl., p. 426. 



