THE FEEDING OF STOCK. 303 



cow fed upon food deficient in nourishment will manifest its effects in the diminished quantity 

 of milk, and will not recover the normal condition for two days : the nature of milk and the 

 character of the life-force explain this. The life-force of the system must be restored first, 

 and its expenditure, which has not been met with its wonted supply, monopolizes the first 

 aliment which is furnished, and when the general system has recovered its normal state, and 

 not till then, will it give up its nutriment to the special functions which play but a secondary 

 part in the living system, in importance to the welfare of the whole. 



THE FEEDING OF STOCK. 



Domestic animals are maintained for four purposes : 1. For furnishing a nutritious aliment, 

 as milk. 2. Clothing. 3. For their labor or service. 4. For their flesh. These four pur- 

 poses might be resolved into one, the last I have named, for really it is their flesh, or its pro- 

 ducts that we obtain, whether it is in the form of meat, wool or labor. The great end to be 

 answered, then, in keeping them will be fulfilled by furnishing them with that diet which is the 

 most easily changed into flesh. What is flesh 1 Flesh is organized blood, and blood is water, 

 albumen, fibrin, iron and various salts, in combination, all of which may be derived from the 

 vegetable kingdom, as from peas, Indian corn, and other cereals. 



The inquiry which interests the farmer, in regard to his stock, relates to the mode and man- 

 ner of feeding them, and what will secure to him the ends which he has in view in keeping his 

 cattle ; what food will give him the best milk, or what is the best food for fattening them ; 

 or, in case of working oxen, what food will give him the most profit while employed in labor. 

 The cow, under no circumstances, is inclined to take much exercise ; there is, therefore, a less 

 amount of the tissues consumed than there would be provided she was driven to work or com- 

 pelled to take vigorous exercise. Quietude and rest favor the secretion of milk, and hence, in 

 providing for the milch cow, regard must be had to the respiratory wants, which may be sup- 

 plied by the starchy and saccharine compounds, and then for the wants of the system, which is 

 to meet the albuminous matters, and finally to the milk, which is albuminous, fatty and sac- 

 charine, and which may be supplied by the same matters which supply the waste of the system. 

 Milk contains all the elements necessary for the growth of the young animal, ra and so in the 

 waste of the system, the muscular, nervous and osseous systems, the elements which are re- 

 moved will be identical with those contained in milk. If an animal required only a provision 

 for the respiration, sugar, gum, starch, or the amilaceous bodies, would be sufficient. Those, 

 however, never form parts of organs, hence if fed only upon such bodies, the organs, which are 

 undergoing continual change and waste, would be left entirely to a consumptive process, and 

 destitute of the means of renovation : the system would perish under the regimen. In the 

 means which are provided in the system of nature for the sustenance of animals, she has com- 

 bined the necessary elements of respiration and nutrition, in most of the bodies designed for 

 the food of animals. We are not obliged, therefore, to look about and prepare special aliments 

 to meet the varied wants of animals, or rather to manufacture them. The following, however. 



